Encounters
by Reiki-Piratical
Summary: Ace had heard about men going on journeys of self-discovery, but he never imagined he'd be going on one with a barmaid from a failed dine and dash attempt, or that she would inadvertently lead him to discovering his mother's side of the family.
1. Chapter I

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><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

**PART ONE  
><strong>

_Chapter I_

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><p>When the traveller swaggered into the bar, the first thing that ran through Lazue's mind revolved around the simple fact that the man owned one hell of an ugly hat. This was a prime example of a rather deplorable habit she'd developed over the years: picking out all the negative aspects of a person's appearance. She found it easier to later judge someone's character this way, no matter how shallow this habit made her out to be. She just found this habit absolutely vital to her success, as it assisted her greatly in dealing with men. Early on, from working long shifts in this tavern, she had learned how easily a sweet tongue on a man did a woman in, and she had developed this habit, this defence mechanism, to cope.<p>

Being a female bartender had taught her not to be swayed by a man's charm, his clothing, or his degree of handsomeness. She learnt to steel herself against men, to act as cold and uninviting as she could, all in order to keep them from taking advantage of her as many often attempted to do. So far she was doing a damn fine job making sure customers paid their tab. One way or another.

Lazue noticed offhandedly that the man wasn't wearing much more than baggy shorts held in place by an oversized buckle and the ugly hat. She wished that her boss had put up a sign at the front of the tavern announcing that they wouldn't serve anyone without a shirt on their back. After all, more often than not a man without a shirt meant he was a poor vagabond unable to feed himself.

The man with the hat who slumped into one of the many empty stools at the bar appeared as though he hadn't a beli to his name.

"Can I get something to eat, please?" the traveller politely inquired, his face impassive and half-hidden under the brim of that ugly orange hat. Lazue continued to stare at that hat with its strange theatre faces sitting on the brim, noticing that it was made of material that had a slight shine to it, though it wasn't silk and it certainly was no metal alloy she knew of. The hat didn't look heavy nor did it look flimsy. It seemed instead like it was created to withstand a certain type of predicament. She hadn't the slightest clue what, but on the Grand Line anything and everything could happen. She had seen more than one strange traveller come through the tavern over the years.

"What do you want to eat?" Lazue asked gruffly. She hadn't the time to be fooling around when there were more lucrative customers to be served.

"Whatever you're serving. As long as it's a lot of food, I'll be happy," the stranger grunted, pulling his hat off his head to reveal dishevelled black locks that probably had never felt the pull of a brush through them. Once again, Lazue took in his appearance and came to the conclusion that the man was doubtlessly a drifter of sorts. Perhaps a travelling bard, judging by the theatrical smilies on his hat. Now he was asking for food, and a lot of it at that.

Her gaze swept across the room to her co-worker, a thick shouldered burly man with a face that resembled that of a pug's, squashed in and disproportioned. She caught his beady eyes and he shrugged passively, resuming his task of straightening up their liquor cabinet. She had a feeling that Tool would gladly place his hands around the vagabond's neck if Lazue found out the man was without coin.

So, she decided to serve him, despite having her reservations. She figured Tool would appreciate a midday brawl.

Lazue went around to the back room where the kitchen was found deserted. At this time of day, with the customer count at its lowest, their chef would surely be taking a smoking break out back. This was just fine with Lazue as she could see the chef had left a mess of leftovers in the kitchen for the taking. If the rogue hadn't a single beli then she wouldn't feel bad feeding him kitchen scraps only fit for consumption by animals. He looked like a mangy mutt anyhow.

_However_, she wagered to herself, _if the man has enough money to pay for the food I'll make him up a meal to take on the road for free._

She didn't think she'd be making that package. Her premonitions were rarely wrong when it came to the tavern's customers.

She grabbed a dirty plate and quickly ran it under the stale water sitting in the sink, swishing it about until most of the solid particles broke free. Then she hastily dried the dish, reminding herself that she would be covering the plate anyway, and began searching the kitchen for the remnants of meals past served.

She scrounged up a great deal of things from plates that had been nibbled on naught an hour ago and pilled the assortment of meats and vegetables onto the single plate. Soon it was covered with a hodgepodge of ingredients and she heated the plate on a rack above the stove to finish it off. Then she grabbed a bowl from the overhead cupboards, this one clean, and emptied the remainder of the stew that was sitting in a cauldron simmering. It was probably ruined, having sat there unstirred for a few hours already, but she suspected a hungry man wouldn't notice the slightly charred flavour.

She snatched some spare cutlery off the counter and took the dishes out.

For eating the tavern's leftovers and reducing their garbage load for the day, Lazue brandished a tankard which she topped off with their strongest liquor, intending to give it to him for nothing. He would need it if he were to actually consume the food.

All the stranger said as she placed the meal in front of him was: "Thanks."

Lazue backed off, wondering if the vagabond would get sick and puke up all of his innards on the scuffed wooden floor. She kept watch on him from a distance as he stabbed fiercely at the food and more or less drank the scorching stew, despite the fact that the heat must have burned his tongue and scalded his throat.

Tool came up beside Lazue and nudged her silently, nodding that he would be out back collecting the garbage for disposal later. She wordlessly shrugged and continued to watch the customer she was sure would ask to use the toilet after finishing his grisly meal.

The man continued to eat with vigour. She pondered when he'd had his last meal. Then, with a tiny grunt, the man suddenly keeled over, his face splattering into the food she'd hastily prepared.

_Oh shit,_ she thought with mounting horror_. I…hoped he had a stronger stomach than that. How am I going to explain to the boss that I accidentally caused the death of a customer?_ Lazue sprung forward from the back of the tavern and wove her way to the man's side. He was completely submerged in what must have been the mashed potatoes with gravy. A barbequed pork chop that had been too burnt to serve to their regular customers rested seamlessly against his tanned cheek.

She tentatively shook his naked shoulder, noticing his tattoo. The vertical letters down his arm spelt something. It looked like a name. "Asce?" She put a heavy emphasis on the 's', unsure of what the cross through the letter meant. "Asce!" Though it was strange, she accepted the tattoo as a variant spelling of mule, or, more commonly in her part of the world, _ass_.

There wasn't an answer, though somehow she detected the slight rise and fall of his chest. His fork, piercing a bit of meat, remained erect in his propped up hand. She touched lightly for a pulse on his wrist. Found one. It thumped evenly, signalling that he was alive.

Not a moment after coming to that conclusion, the man stirred in his meal. She jumped back against a table, a bit thrown when the man lifted his head, caked with a myriad of food. He turned to her almost sleepily and reached for her apron. Before she could protest he'd already painted a lovely abstract picture across the fabric. Then, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, the man once again began consuming his food, starting with the smidgeon of meat left on his fork.

Lazue glanced down at her ruined apron and, instead of kicking the man off his stool as her instincts were shouting at her to do, she turned away from the scene and started back into the kitchen. Once there she slumped against a counter and let out a little sigh of relief.

She wasn't a murderer after all.

Thank goodness.

She had a few moments of silence to herself before Tool came in the back door.

"Did that guy pay yet?" Tool asked, making no attempt to hide the glimmer in his eyes that told of his willingness to act in a brutal and unforgiving manner.

Lazue, however, had decided to make the customer her business and her business only. The man had mucked up her apron and for that he was going to get a heftier bill to pay. "_I'll_ see to it he does." Tool stared at her determined face and decided that he would wait for tonight to get his fight. The drunkards were more amusing to deal with than one penniless idiot anyway.

"Chef went down to the brewery to buy some kegs of our usual stuff. We'll have to pick it up ourselves later. The ass is lame on _two_ feet. Unbelievable, really."

Lazue couldn't help it as her mind rushed back to the man sitting at the bar with the peculiar tattoo. She shook her head to clear it and then replied, "The mule's getting older and probably needs to be retired. I told the boss we need to invest in a new one but he was too busy cutting expenses. That damn man only thinks about himself. The fool hardly cares to invest in his business."

Tool grumbled, convinced he was doomed to carry all of the kegs back to the tavern on his back. He knew that Lazue wouldn't be of much help, what with being accustomed to serving guests rather than doing backbreaking hard labour. Not that he would curse her, for he quite liked having the girl around. She was much better with supplying the customer's demands than he was. He hated serving people, but at the same time the only other job he could have filled with his lack of an education would be a job working down at the island's docks. And that certainly would have been backbreaking work.

He wasn't happy, but he figured it could be worse. Though it didn't mean he couldn't express his displeasure at the route his life had taken every once and while.

Lazue left Tool cussing out their boss in the kitchen and headed back out to the bar area. She had dumped her apron on the counter, its use fulfilled the moment the stranger's dirty face had rubbed against the cloth.

Speaking of the stranger, he was no longer sitting in the stool. His plate and bowl were gleaming as if they'd been licked clean and the liquor she'd given him was completely gone. Not even a drop remained. She stared into the empty tankard before catching movement out of the corner of her eye.

If the man was trying to find the toilets, he was going in the wrong direction. She opened her mouth to call him back and point him the right way when she realized that he was making a beeline for the exit.

_That son of a bitch._

She booked it, leaping over the counter and making a note of the lack of coins left at the meal. The man was, without a doubt, dinning and dashing. She knew he was broke, yet foolishly served him anyway thinking that Tool would be the one to throttle the man. Then he'd gone and messed with her apron and she'd told Tool she would take care of him. She couldn't just turn around and seek Tool out having made a promise like that.

"Hey, you! Asce!" she yelled. In front of her, just scant feet away, the man stiffened then bolted. This only confirmed her suspicions. "_Ass_!"

She could only think, dryly, _What a fitting name._

Lazue ploughed through the wooden revolving shutter doors of the tavern and spilled out into the streets. The midday crowds were milling about, everyone going about their business. Her eyes scanned quickly and she locked onto her target. When in a pinch, Lazue could trust her eyes to help her out.

She took off after the bob of black hair, noticing that the ugly hat was bouncing against the man's back, suspended by a string around his neck. Though it was possible for her to lose sight of the black hair in the throng of people, she knew she wouldn't lose sight of such an ugly hat.

Lazue knew before long that the man would easily outrun her.

What was also obvious to her trained eyes was that the man didn't know where he was going. She, on the other hand, knew every back alley in the city. She firmly believed that she was the one with the advantage, not him.

Without breaking her pace Lazue located a ladder that would take her to the rooftop of one of the tallest buildings in the city. As a general trend, most of the buildings were the same size but Lazue knew that this particular building had an additional floor.

She scaled the ladder and peered out at the crowds from her new vantage point. The time she spent climbing the ladder would have given the runner below time enough to get out of her sight had she stayed on the ground and pursued him. Either way, time and speed were not on her side.

She relied on her eyes and, sure enough, picked out his orange hat. He had turned into a back alley and was currently still running and dodging the occasional passer-by, though she detected his pace was slowing to a lazy jog. As she crouched at the edge of the roof she watched him turn around, checking for his pursuer.

He stopped, waited a few minutes and picked at his teeth, and then continued on down the alley at a more leisurely pace.

Lazue smiled at herself, knowing that the best time to strike was always when her opponent's guard was down. And, right now, the man's guard was nonexistent.

She took note of his location and the direction he was heading. The alley, she knew, opened up into an always-empty courtyard. She would confront him there.

With that in mind, Lazue climbed down the ladder and took a much faster route to her destination. The man had weaved in and around trying to lose her and in the end had set himself up.

Lazue arrived at the mouth of the alley where the man would pass by in mere minutes. She cemented herself against the wall of the courtyard, intending to have the jump on the man as he passed by unaware of her presence.

She waited patiently, thinking herself quite clever, until she heard the scuffling of boots on loose dirt. She tensed, ready to pounce. She would, at the very least, scare the crap out of the man if he had no hidden coins to give her.

After a pause in which Lazue held her breath, the man passed by her without much thought of who she was. Under his hat, she caught his eye. However, at first glance her appearance didn't register. By the time he did a double take Lazue had jumped onto the man's back, catching him completely open to attack. She wrapped her legs around his midsection and one arm around his neck. Her other free hand walloped him on the top of his head.

The sounds of their ensuing struggle echoed in the empty courtyard. Basically, all Lazue wanted to do was land as many blows as possible to compensate for the lack of concern the stranger had shown her by taking off without so much as leaving a single beli. Not to mention wrecking her apron. He had been damn disrespectful to her and she would let him know he couldn't get away with such rude behaviour in this world.

Before too long, the shirtless stranger disentangled her feet around his waist and threw her to the ground where she lay panting. He grunted, ran a hand through his messy black hair and glared at her, unsure of what to make of her persistent streak.

Her job nearly done, Lazue laughed morbidly and stood up. But before she could say anything the man had picked up his hat from where it had fallen in the dirt, dusted it off, and continued on his way, back to her. She ground her teeth, annoyed at his indifference to her assault.

"You're just a dishonourable mongrel of a man, aren't you?" she taunted loudly. She allowed herself a quick triumphant smirk upon seeing his body stiffen up. His muscles pulled taunt across his broad back and that was all she needed to confirm that she'd rubbed his hair backwards. Finally she was getting somewhere.

"I am not _dishonourable_," the man growled, spinning around to face her. Her smirk had vanished and she glared at him evenly.

"You certainly are. Taking whatever the hell you want from a lady without a word. It's downright _shameful_."

Again, he bristled at her words. She knew, from past experience, that many a man put their pride and honour before their life. As a woman living on her own she often had to prey on this weakness to survive. "It's pathetic, stealing from a woman."

His already hooded eyes narrowed even further. "I'm a pirate, it's what I do."

Somehow, that explained everything.

She couldn't argue with that simpleton statement. Instead, she changed tactics, "Do you know what a debt is?" He inclined his head, the only indication that he was still listening to her. "You owe me something in return for the food and for dirtying my clothes."

"I have nothing to give you," he said simply, gesturing to his lack of possessions.

She offered a weak smile. She had just thought of the perfect plot. Tool would be grateful to her later. "If you're strong, you can help me with some manual labour. Unpaid, of course. But it will erase your debt."

The man frowned before curtly answering, "No."

"Yeah, I didn't think you looked strong enough to help either. You're kind of scrawny." In truth, Lazue knew her statement fell flat on the muscular man who'd thrown her aside like a feathery pillow, but she had worked on making her voice sound convincing even to the most hesitant of souls. White lies were a survival tactic.

The man's fists clenched, fingernails biting into flesh. It was a subtle movement, but Lazue's sharp eye caught it.

"How long must I work?"

"Today. And if you prove useless in the tavern you can work tomorrow as well when the shipment of supplies comes in down by the docks."

The man frowned, knowing he was being blatantly cheated. Lazue sweetened her smile. She knew that as strong as Tool may claim himself to be, he would not be able to handle the moving of tomorrow's shipment of supplies all by himself and without a mule and cart. "We'll feed you and board you up at the inn down the street for free."

The vagabond visibly perked at the mention of more food.

"If it's only for two days, I will assist you and pay my debt."

That sealed it; Lazue's eyes were never wrong. When she'd first laid eyes on that ugly hat she'd taken the man for an idiot. Sure enough, he had proven himself.


	2. Chapter II

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><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter II_

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><p>The walk back to the tavern was relatively uneventful. At one point the man had walked in front of Lazue and she took in the back tattoo that moved languidly with the ripple of his muscles, marking him out as a pirate. She didn't know the flag of a single pirate crew, as it had never concerned her before, so thought nothing of where he might belong amongst the waves of the sea. However, she did pick up on the astonished looks of a few passers-by that seemed unnaturally preoccupied with the mark on this man. That, or it was the ugly damn hat.<p>

No, it was definitely the tattoo.

She told the man to wait for a moment and ducked inside of a shop where she bought an oversized button-up shirt. She came back outside and immediately had him put it on. He seemed a bit surprised that Lazue had bought him a shirt and, upon asking why she'd done so, learnt that Lazue wasn't one for prying eyes.

"Everyone's staring at your damn pirate mark. If you're going to work at the tavern, you're going to wear clothes like a normal person."

"Everyone's staring?" he stated more than asked. He glanced about them, bemused, and then chuckled to himself. "No doubt, no doubt."

Lazue ignored this and continued on to the tavern. When they arrived Tool was out front straightening up swinging double door. In her haste, Lazue had knocked the hinges out of alignment.

"I brought back a helper," Lazue said smugly, hardly able to keep the triumph from her voice.

Tool looked up from his work and merely grunted, "Name?"

"Ace," the stranger supplied.

Tool went back to his task, unimpressed. Lazue stood for a moment with the newly dubbed 'Ace' and wondered just how illiterate the man was to get his name spelt wrong on his bicep. No wonder the 's' had been crossed out. What an idiot.

Ace turned to Lazue expectantly.

"I'm Lazue, and he's Tool," she filled him in snappishly.

His smile was genuine, but Lazue's eyes caught an undercurrent of amusement. "That's a unique name for a woman."

Lazue took offence, thinking he meant to make fun of her. "Watch it or I'll beat you again."

At this, Tool raised his eyebrows, silently questioning. He knew not how Lazue dealt with those she deemed strictly 'her business'. In fact, he was surprised to hear that Lazue engaged in any kind of physical brawl. He hadn't known her for long, but her appearance had left him under the impression that she wasn't much of a fighter, but rather a dainty, though sharp-tongued, woman. At least by his standards.

Suffice to say, Tool was stunned she'd fought with the man called Ace, who seemed on muscle alone to be twice her size. Of course, Ace didn't look at all beaten up, which supported his earlier impression of her skills with her fists.

"Take Ace to the brewery to pick up those kegs. He owes us a debt. I'll cover here," Lazue said shortly, pushing past the doors of the tavern and disappearing inside. Even though she'd been the one to taunt Ace into joining the staff temporarily, she had no desire to hang around him. Besides, _she_ had no use for Ace. She'd brought him back for Tool as a pair of extra hands.

Tool grunted as the door became misaligned once again. This time, instead of fixing it, he simply dropped his hammer into the dirt and stalked off in the opposite direction.

Ace didn't move, instead waiting for some kind of acknowledgement from the big, heavyset man. Tool turned, found the new hand wasn't following him, and beckoned to Ace that he'd better catch up. Quick.

Despite the fact that Ace had tried numerous times to engage Tool in conversation the walk to the local brewery was one made in silence. All the while, Ace was wondering why his luck put him in such a predicament. He knew he shouldn't have agreed to repay his debt to the girl behind the counter. But now he couldn't go back on his word. It was something true men just didn't do.

He'd suck it up and deal for now, then split as soon as they released him from his short-term employment. His captain had allowed him free reign on the amount of time it took him to accomplish his latest mission, so he could afford to stick around this city for an extra two days. If any of his crewmembers asked, he would blame it on bad sailing conditions.

When they arrived at the brewery, Ace couldn't help but notice how the place looked heavily fortified against possible attacks. There were, after all, cannons on the roof. There were also a few cutlasses swinging gently in the breeze from where they hung against the sides of a few empty kegs, clinking against one another like wind chimes. In easy access should a brewer need them, of course.

Tool barged right into the back lot of the store, not bothering to spare the foreboding cannons on the rooftop a second glance. Ace followed, remaining calm considering that cannon fire was the least of his worries. Around the backside of the building was a tall, blond man who seemed to be placing grapes in a canister for fermenting… or something. How the brew got in the bottle wasn't something Ace was particularly knowledgeable about.

The blond man gave a feeble wave at them, and pointed to four kegs that sat in the shade. "The chef guy paid for those four, so take 'em. I see you don't have the ass…?"

"Lame foot," Tool grunted. "Have him instead."

Ace smiled politely before joining Tool near the kegs. They came to his waist and were constructed of wood and some other metal. He touched the barrels; they were cold to the touch as if they'd just come out of a cellar.

Tool hoisted one under his arm, straddling it. Then he leaned over and managed to put another one under his other arm in much the same fashion. Ace tried to imitate him, but couldn't manage to get the second casket to fit under his arm while retaining a concrete hold on the first. It kept slipping out of place and he had to put the second one down before it crashed and leaked its contents. This was certainly an acquired skill of bartenders.

This was not the sort of work he was used to. The weight was fine, but the shape? Awkward.

Tool found amusement in Ace's struggling. Finally, when he'd drunk his fill of the spectacle, Tool said, "Leave the other one and come back for it. Two safe trips are better than a single disastrous one."

Ace felt a slight blow to his pride but didn't question Tool's reasoning since it was sound to his ears. He would just have to come back for the other one. It would be no big deal.

Tool led the way back to the tavern, Ace struggling to make it through the throngs of people. With his pirate mark covered up people weren't giving him any space. Tool on the other hand seemed to command respect. People knew his face and went out of their way to give him a wide berth. In the end, Ace was practically stepping on Tool's heels, following him closely so as not to have his keg bumped out of his arms and precious contents spilt all over the street. He knew the value of good liquor.

His pirate crew had robbed breweries dry before.

Lazue barely glanced up from her seat behind the bar reading the newspaper as they entered with the kegs.

Tool set his cargo down by the back of the tavern, near a door Ace hadn't noticed before. "Put yours over here by the cellar, then go back and get the other one. Hurry before it gets warm in the sun."

Ace did as he was told, once again berating himself for having given in to Lazue's taunts. He hadn't realized it then, but Lazue was actually a cunning woman. She had his respect for manipulating him. He would give her that much.

Back out into the sun Ace went, remembering that he had to make a left upon exiting the tavern. This was about the extent of the directions he'd retained. Before too long he found himself staring up at a clock tower he'd never seen before. He marvelled at how the clock tower was the exact same size as most of the other buildings and continued on his way.

He reasoned to himself that because the buildings were all relatively the same height he couldn't be blamed for becoming lost. Sure, he had no trouble at sea so long as he had a log pose strapped to his arm but on land…he tended to take the long way to a destination.

As he spotted the brewery's cannons, Ace hoped that the keg he was supposed to pick up wasn't getting too warm. Even he knew that good brew could be ruined if stored at the wrong temperature.

Ace rounded the back side of the brewery at a brisk pace but stopped just as suddenly. Where was the keg? It had been removed. The man with blond hair still sat in the same spot as before with a bushel of grapes, not even sparing him a glance.

"Um, excuse me?"

The blond looked up curiously, then frowned upon recognizing Ace. "What are you back here for? Something happen?"

Perplexed, Ace explained, "Where did the fourth barrel go? It was sitting here when we left."

The blond's face darkened. "I thought you'd come back already. Sorry, but someone took the barrel. And if my hunch is right, I would say it's none other than those bandits that live in the valley. They always steal right out from under people's noses. Why do you think this place is so heavily armed?"

Ace was about to spit something along the lines of how weapons in the hands of a man who couldn't use them were useless anyways but thought better of it. Now was not the time to get upset. Besides, the loss of the keg was partially to blame on him since he couldn't carry both kegs at once as Tool had.

"Where can if find these valley bandits?"

"In the valley, obviously."

"Point me in the direction," Ace said irritably.

The blond man raised his arm, pointing behind him. "Go straight and you'll either fall to your death or find the bandits' hideaway. The valley is more like a chasm, really." The blond sat up a bit straighter on his work bench. "Either way, your goose will be cooked. Those bandits are bad business. They are all brutal killers. Just let the keg go. You might get a few lashings for your mistake, but at least you'll be alive."

Ignoring the blatant warning, Ace made a running start for the valley. Behind him he heard a soft sigh and the blond man said, "What a moron. And I don't even have a Den Den Mushi to tell Tool his newest ass is dead."

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><p>The brewer had been right about one thing; the supposed valley really was more of a chasm. Sitting on the edge of the huge gorge with a drop of what had to be more than two hundred feet, Ace surveyed the area with his feet dangling. From his vantage point he could see that there was a fire burning on the far side of the gorge. In earnest, that was all that stood out in the valley.<p>

He hardly needed his eyes to locate the bandits' hideaway. He could feel the fire in his very blood. It would be easy to play with that fire to create an alarm to flush out his foes. However, movement in the gorge beneath his feet informed him that he likely wouldn't need to pay the bandits' camp a visit.

Below his position a band of five men talked rowdily amongst themselves. They wore battered clothes and any and all exposed skin was streaked with varying amounts of dirt. He spotted his keg as it was passed around, each man taking a turn carrying it for a set distance down the rocky ledge of the cliff. The path they were traversing was so narrow that if one man misplaced his foot he would plummet to a horrible, spine breaking death.

Ace raised his arm, formed a crude handgun with his fingers, and let loose a volley of fire bullets at the man who led the pack. The single file line halted as his bullets made contact with the rock face in front of the leader. His quarry looked around wildly, crouching low on the rock as they tried to gauge where the attack had come from. It wasn't long until one of them looked up and saw Ace sitting there innocently twiddling his thumbs.

"The drink, if it please you, gentlemen," Ace called down to their glaring faces. He patted the dirt beside him, indicating that he would like the keg returned to his side. The bandits understood his message, but frowned and snarled obscenities amongst themselves rather than complying with the wishes of a stranger.

Mulling over possible keg retrieval options, Ace found that there was really little he could do to avoid a full-out confrontation. Instead of waiting for a plan to form in his mind, he leapt off the cliff face and skidded down the rock. He landed heavily on the rock passageway that the bandits found footing on. A bit too heavily, as his right leg went right through the brittle rock past his ankle.

Grimacing as the rock held his foot trapped, Ace revealed his Devil Fruit powers. He let his foot turn into flame and lifted the gaseous limb from where it had embedded itself.

The bandits faltered backwards at the sight of Ace's burning appendage, nearly knocking off their leader's precarious footing at the far end of their formation. Ace let loose a breathy laugh and advanced towards the first man in line for an ass kicking. He would have to clear the path to his goal. The third man in line was the one holding the liquor he'd come to recover.

"Give me the keg and no one gets burnt."

There was a moment of complete silence as the bandits' ceased breathing. But it was broken as the grizzled man closest to Ace made a dive over the cliff face, taking his chances at life with a few broken limbs as opposed to death by fire.

The remaining bandits watched their comrade drop and crumple on the ground many feet below. He lay without a twitch of movement. Ace had seen many a pirate fall overboard when under attack from a merciless enemy, some that couldn't swim. They had all never surfaced again. Somehow, seeing death happen so easily on land was far more terrifying than seeing a drowning happen at sea.

After all, the ocean often didn't spit up and expose what it had eaten.

Ace grimaced, not only at the life being so carelessly given up, but also at the cowardice the bandit had shown. He disliked cowards a great deal.

As he was mulling this over, the newly exposed bandit after the other had leapt to his death reached into one of his trouser pockets. The object he retrieved caught the sun and Ace's mind registered that it was a gun. Without hesitation, the bandit raised it to eye level and fired it.

The bullet passed through Ace's forehead at an angle, ricocheting off of the cliff behind him. Flames licked the impact point, covering up the hole as if it had never been there in the first place. Slowly, Ace allowed himself a smirk, hoping that he could intimidate them into submission without further bloodshed.

The second bandit shrieked, stumbling into the one behind it. Ace noticed the third one had armed himself with a cutlass but, upon seeing how useless the gun had been against the man made of fire, he quickly threw the metal to the ground in surrender.

The remaining bandits weren't as stupid as the one to take his chances at the bottom of the rock face. They all took off running along the narrow ledge, leaving their weapons and the keg behind. Their faces were moulded into varying degrees of shellshock.

Ace thought he was quite lucky and didn't squander the opportunity to retrieve the barrel. He got off with bluffing. If he had used his abilities to their full extent he would have altered the temperature inside the keg and ruined the brew. He knew he could be careless at times, but as the years went by he tried his hardest to use his brain in pressing situations.

His efforts culminated in joining _the_ most notorious crew on the Grand Line. Yet, here he was, once again of his own stupidity, a part time employee of a tavern. That girl had really pulled the wool over his eyes. His crew, including his captain, would laugh if they knew what he was doing right at this very moment in time.

It was painful to dwell on that for the thought of his crew's laughing faces spifflicated his pride. He shook his head and concentrated on the task at hand.

This time, as he hoisted the barrel up into his arms, Ace found that the keg seemed feather-light. Perhaps it was his annoyance with the girl who'd tricked him that fuelled his muscles. It could even have been the man who'd jumped to his death out of pure cowardice. Maybe it was just the simple fact that some people had dared to come between him and his duty. At any rate, he made good time getting back to the tavern.

It helped that he only lost his way once.

As he entered with the keg held over his head, Lazue stepped out of the kitchen and into the bar, spotting him immediately. On her face danced a scowl and her eyes flashed dangerously when he regarded her with no more than a nod after he placed his keg down by the cellar door. The other kegs were gone out of sight and Tool was nowhere to be found.

"I thought you might've jumped ship on us," Lazue growled, coming out from behind the bar area to confront Ace. She marched up to him, her nose level with his collarbone. Despite her size, Ace did feel a slight rush of discomfort. Not fear, never fear. Still, she was rather imposing for a woman.

"I got lost," Ace stated simply. He intended to keep the bandits a secret. He'd dealt with them, so there was no reason to tell Lazue about his sticky situation. She would find something to call him that would be far worse than incompetent if he did spill his troubles.

With a disbelieving shake of her head, Lazue felt the sides of the barrel. It was warm to the touch. Curses formed on her lips. "The damn brew has been almost ruined, ass."

"It's Ace," the man ground out between clenched teeth, trying to keep his composure.

Before Lazue could chew him out further, a straggling bunch of customers came through the tavern's doors and plopped themselves down at a table. Lazue donned a fresh apron and violently jerked her thumb towards the back of the building.

"Go into the kitchen and help Chef." Lazue turned away from him to fix a stool at the bar. He heard her mutter under her breath, "Can't trust that ass to be a waiter." Ace ignored her, partially because he couldn't help but agree. He couldn't see himself balancing plates of food on the tips of his fingers. Though he might be able to keep the plates hot, he would probably just as easily drop them on someone's head.

That, or the overwhelming urge to eat what he would be assigned to serve would get him a verbal beating.

"What's the chef's name?" asked Ace, figuring that to be a useful piece of information to know beforehand.

"Don't ask his name. He hates that," Lazue stated ominously. Ace didn't press for why.

As Ace walked off towards the kitchen he tried his hardest to put himself in a better mood. He didn't want to make enemies with everyone, not when he agreed to work tomorrow should today go badly. Which he had a feeling it had.

He tried to recall some of his happiest memories and one kid's face came to mind immediately. The thought of his kid brother lightened his mood considerably. He knew they would meet some day soon and he looked forward to seeing how his brother had grown in the time they'd been apart. That thought was enough for now.

He walked into the kitchen with a smile on his face. A short stump of a man wearing a white chef's hat appeared astonished to see him in the flesh. Lazue probably told him that Ace had taken off at the first opportunity.

"Hey," Ace greeted the man casually. "Lazue sent me back here to help out."

The older, wrinkled man grunted and stabbed a finger in the general direction of the sink. "Congratulations, you're the new chore boy. Now, if I were you, which thank God I'm not, I'd get started on that heap right away. The dishes pile up fast in this place."

Slinking to the edge of the sink, Ace nearly retched upon seeing the strange things floating around in there.

Seeing Ace's discomfiture, the chef said, "You might want to clean out that sink first before you use it." The man laughed, a disturbingly high soprano that sent pins and needles into Ace's spine. "Though perhaps you should have something to eat before you start."

"Food?" Ace perked up. Now _this_ was the reason he'd joined in the first place.

Chef gestured to a stack of half-eaten leftovers and smiled grimly.

Ace stared; this was not what he'd had in mind.

Damn that woman.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N.:<strong> Thank you everyone who was so kind as to review the first chapter! I really appreciate it!


	3. Chapter III

**...**

* * *

><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter III_

* * *

><p>After a few hours of scrubbing dishes at the sink, the skin on Ace's hands began cracking and blistering. He wanted, badly, to sear all of the grime off the dishes and be done with it, but he figured that in the state of annoyance he was in he'd completely disintegrate the kitchen rather than do any good. Besides, he was planning on keeping a low profile, so that meant no firestorms.<p>

It would be… _embarrassing_ if his crew found out his whereabouts and temporary occupation.

"Damn useless shitty stove," the chef muttered suddenly. Ace peeked over his shoulder at the spectacle. In the past hour or so the burner had been going out constantly every few minutes, aggravating the cook and backing up the orders. "Fucking shit won't light worth a fucking damn."

Despite hearing everything the man said, Ace feigned that he wasn't in the know. This was, to him, an opportunity to strike up a conversation. They'd been going about their separate tasks silently, with only a bit of formal instruction, up until now. Ace was beginning to wonder if the man was related to Tool in some way. Both were frigid.

"Somethin' the matter, Chef?"

The chef jumped a bit upon hearing Ace's deep voice, but straightened out as Ace left his dishwashing post. The two looked at the sorry rust box of an appliance and the chef sighed in frustration.

"The burner won't light," the chef grumbled. He held a match under said burner, waggled it back and forth enticingly, and cursed when the flames burned down to the end of the tinder stick and eagerly licked at his fingers. Ace couldn't suppress a small smile that fought its way onto his face.

He could feel the flame on that match snickering malevolently. Fire could not be controlled, only persuaded to do one's bidding. That flame had been a devious one, brought on by the match-striker's irritation.

"Here, let me try," Ace said, taking the matches from the chef's trembling fingers. The chef relinquished the matches angrily, though without a fight, sucking on the minuscule burns he'd obtained.

In truth, Ace didn't need the matches, but he figured it would be best not to reveal himself to this man. He struck the match against its casing, producing a shimmering little blaze, and put it under the burner. Then he let loose a volley of tiny flames from his fingertips, taking care to angle his body so the chef wouldn't be able to see too much. The barrage of flames roared as they caught and Ace stepped back triumphantly as the stove hissed and sputtered back to life with more vigour than before.

These were flames that were happy to dance around.

The chef said nothing, merely pushed Ace aside and got the fire under control with a dial on the front of the stove.

Recognizing that to be the end of the matter, Ace went back to feverishly washing dishes. Just as he was thinking about how cold the people who worked at the tavern were, a barely audible voice broke through his thoughts.

"Thanks, kid," the chef muttered before throwing a slab of meat onto a pan to fry up.

Ace grinned to himself. A small victory was a victory nonetheless.

However, his elation only lasted him a few more hours. The tavern had become busier as the night wore on and the sounds of a growing party teased Ace's ears. He longed to be where the fun and booze was. At one point he stopped washing dishes and stood still with his eyes shut, listening to the noises around him. Lazue, making her usual stop in the kitchen to drop off even more dirty plates and cutlery, noticed him sulking.

The image of a puppy begging to be played with entered her mind and she groaned, regretting already what she was about to do.

"Have you taken a break yet?" Lazue asked, throwing a dirty dishrag at Ace. It landed in his equally dirty hair and slid down his face, settling in a heap on his shoulder.

Ace picked the rag off and threw it into the sink dismally. "No."

"Why don't you come help me serve drinks and have a few yourself," she suggested softly. She didn't like the guilt that gnawed at her every time she saw Ace slaving away with the dishes and knowing that she put him in a place he obviously didn't want to be in.

Ace raised an eyebrow, his face incredulous.

"You in or not?" Lazue asked, returning to her usual hard tone of voice. She didn't want Ace to get any ideas after all. In Lazue's opinion, the second a woman went lax, men went after her like she was nothing but prey to sate their appetites.

Ace tried his best to keep the grin off his face but failed miserably. "I'm so in."

Lazue turned away to keep her own small smile to herself. The guilt she'd previously felt was lifted from her shoulders and that was enough to set her at ease. It was barely past midnight and already she knew she'd be drinking on the tavern's tab tonight.

As soon as Ace stepped out into the bar he felt a strange sense of belonging wash over him like a riptide. The air in the tavern was sultry and stank like, well, its usual patrons. Ace grinned, even as Lazue forced him into wearing an apron to "keep up appearances." He was, after all, firstly a server and secondly a customer.

Lazue made Ace watch carefully as she poured a drink and served it to him. "Just mimic what I do and try not to screw up and spill things everywhere. Or you will be back in the kitchen scrubbing slobber off of cutlery and worse."

"I'm sure I can handle pouring a drink." He laughed boisterously and downed most of his tankard in one shot, then refilled it to prove his point.

"Hey, can I get a shot down here?"

Ace looked at the man waving his hand from the far side of the bar, then looked at Lazue inquisitively.

"Well? Go take his order and serve him, ass!"

Ace sprung into action. Admirably, he managed to get all of the orders correct and delivered to the customers. His only fault was his clumsy feet that took up a lot of space behind the small bar area. Ace found himself getting yelled at numerous times for stepping on Lazue's toes as she darted around, trying her best not to spill anything. She hadn't spilt a drink since the first month she worked at the tavern, which was quite some time ago.

But then Ace went and unbuttoned his shirt. She spilt a tankard of cheap beer all over the floor. And it was not because of Ace's attractive pectorals and abdominals, no; it was because one of the damned buttons on his shirt had caught on her apron. The force of the snag caused her to jolt forwards. Gravity kicked in.

She punched Ace after the abashing event and the blow glanced off of his arm, making nary a dent. Of course, Ace apologized profusely for the accident and even went as far as to painstakingly re-button his shirt, large meaty fingers having immeasurable trouble grasping the small buttons. Still, Lazue put him back to work in front of the sink.

Although he was back to square one, Ace wore a goofy grin, happy he'd gotten a few mugs of beer out of the whole ordeal.

* * *

><p>Two hours passed by and no matter how hard Ace tried to look pathetic, Lazue wouldn't let him back into the bar area. Chef hadn't washed a single dish in Ace's absence and Ace found himself swamped in a mess of half eaten side dishes and entrées. Admittedly, he picked the scraps off a few to appease his bottomless stomach, but he was still depressed about not being re-invited to the escalating party.<p>

He brooded even more when he heard the sounds of a brawl breaking out in the bar. Chef peeked through the window that connected the bar to the kitchen and whistled loudly.

"Damn, Tool's really showin' up that poor son-ova-bitch."

Ace crept up behind the chef, peering over the short man's head for a look at the fight. From what he could see, Tool had someone in a headlock amid a circle of howling men, cheering for the brawl to continue. Ace could see that Lazue – despite the commotion and the fact that her co-worker was partaking in the fight – was continuing to serve customers as if oblivious to the new entertainment.

_She's calm for a lady. Guess she's used to her job and everything that comes with it,_ Ace thought as he watched Lazue sidestep to avoid a falling drunk. The man landed in a stupor, clearly unconscious. It was strange to see the spectacle from the kitchen when before, as a pirate, he'd always been in the middle of that very spectacle he was now witnessing.

Ace watched Tool tossing drunks out into the streets for a while longer until the chef got annoyed and hit him with a frying pan. With his back stinging, Ace returned to work cleaning the dishes and setting them to dry on a rack.

"Well, I'm done for the day," Chef said, chucking his apron into a pile of dirty clothes in the corner of the kitchen. "You can go too when you finish washing and putting away all the dishes. Make sure they're dry though. Water rusts my knives and I won't forgive you if they're at all brown."

"Oh, the tavern's closing?" Ace checked around the corner that separated the kitchen from the bar. He hadn't noticed it after the chef had hit him, but slowly people were leaving and Tool was dragging conscious and unconscious bodies out into the street. When the man turned around to face Ace, the pirate noticed that even though he was sporting a few more bruises than before, his face was glowing happily. The man was certainly a fighter.

He wouldn't admit it aloud but Ace was jealous that the man got to have fun while he slaved away.

Ace leaned against the wall as he caught sight of Lazue wielding a broom. She was sweeping up fragments of glass, leaning over slightly so that her scoop-necked shirt exposed a bit more skin than what could be seen as appropriate. Ace found his eyes were thoroughly enjoying the sweeping curves of her breasts. It was a natural, perfectly manly thing to admire in his opinion.

Tool's voice rang out loudly, "I'm going home then. You gonna get this place cleaned up?"

"Don't I always?" Ace detected a faint hint of irritation in her tone. He smiled and ducked back around the corner before either of the two employees could notice him.

The chef had left. Ace felt a stab of annoyance course through him and then put his emotions aside. He'd finish his task and take off too. Besides, he could work at full speed now that the stubby old man was gone.

The thought brought a smirk to his face. He stretched out his fingers and felt the familiar stirring of power in his blood. Flames sprouted from his fingers and he let the fire grow until he had coated his entire arm in an inferno. The dishes sitting on the drying rack were covered with a warm blanket that evaporated any and all moisture.

Ace calmed his fire and brought his other hand up to test his handiwork. Everything had a red sheen to its finish, but heat was nothing to Ace. He touched the cutlery and the plates and found that not a single drop of water remained on them. They were dryer than Alabasta's deserts in the middle of the summer.

Satisfied that he'd done his job, Ace turned to leave only to come face to face with Lazue. Ace startled, unsure of just how much the woman had seen.

"Did you finish the dishes?" She asked monotonously.

He let out a deep breath he'd been holding in. She hadn't been spying on him. "Ah, yes. Everything's good. Very dry."

She gave him a questioning look but shrugged off his behaviour, citing it as a sign the man was tired. "Okay, in that case we're leaving."

"Leaving for where?" Ace asked cautiously.

"I promised you board at an inn for the night, did I not?" The woman said plainly, turning on the heel of her foot. She stalked off, expecting the man to follow.

After a minute's consideration, footsteps were heard from large clunky boots.

Lazue locked up, tossing the keys to the tavern into her pocket. She didn't speak to Ace but instead focussed on finding her way to the aforementioned inn. The lamplighters were still in the business of lighting up the streets, but Lazue was so accustomed to this drab city that she didn't need the extra light to guide her. Besides, her eyes adjusted quickly to the change in her surroundings.

Behind her, trying his best to follow close but not _too_ close, Ace stumbled around gracelessly, getting caught in potholes and tripping over loose bricks that had fallen away from certain old buildings. Lazue knew he'd be straining his eyes to see her and as much as she disliked the man with an absurd fashion sense she felt bad that he would be overworking his eyes.

She reached behind to grab hold of his elbow, grasping the fabric of the shirt she'd bought him earlier. He made a surprised sound as she pulled him forward to walk beside her. He was even more surprised after a minute of walking that Lazue wasn't letting go. Instead she marched him on, much akin to the way a mother might drag their child out of a candy store.

"That's the inn. I pretty much live there," Lazue supplied as she walked through the doors into a rather wide building. Ace couldn't see much in the dark but he knew the structure was rather small for an inn.

As they entered into the well-lit building, a voice rang out from behind a counter.

"Go away! The rooms are all full tonight!"

Lazue kept pulling Ace along by his elbow. "I need another room for this guy," she snarled, ignoring the previous shouting.

The older woman behind the counter glared back evenly, disgust evident in her haughty gaze. "Another room? There aren't any other rooms, girl. Now either take your boyfriend to your room without causing a ruckus or get the hell out." The woman leaned over the counter, her large bosom spilling out of the confines of her shirt. "Remember, we can kick you out any time we want, girl. My husband may like you, but he's the perverted minority."

Ace turned to Lazue, whose eye simply twitched. Otherwise, she made no other visible sign of having heard the lady in front of her.

"Fine. We stay then," Lazue said, her voice feigning calm. Her grip on Ace's elbow had intensified and the man was starting to squirm. Not because it hurt, but just because the situation itself was a bit uncomfortable. "I've already paid for my place here."

Lazue pulled Ace away from the counter and down a hall. They only got a few paces before the woman at the counter called, "Remember to pay the fee for an extra person in the morning, _whore_."

"Damn that wench," Lazue muttered as soon as they were out of earshot. "Damn her to the fires of hell."

Ace couldn't help himself as he thought, _That could be arranged._

He kept his thoughts to himself and let Lazue lead, her grip on his arm still strong. They passed many doors as they continued down the hallway and Ace thought he heard a peculiar sound. A throaty groan. He strained his ears, vigilant about being in a new environment, and then blushed as he realized exactly the nature of the sound he'd heard. A pair of lovers were obviously busy. And loud.

His eyes went to Lazue, trying to gauge whether she'd heard the strangled moans and eager grunts as well. A pleasure induced cry split the still air and Ace swallowed as he felt a stirring in his gut that he knew he shouldn't act upon. Lazue, meanwhile, just kept walking, ignoring everything around her, including Ace.

Eventually, she stopped outside a door and withdrew another key from her pocket to let them in. Ace peered over Lazue's shoulder, his breath hitching when he saw the innards of the room. There was only a small bed, a nightstand, and a small alcove that held a toilet, sink and tub. No more and no less. The room had not been designed with privacy in mind.

Ace was reluctant to follow her into such a small space. He stood in the doorway as Lazue finally dropped her hold on his elbow. She walked into the room easily, going right to the bed where she crouched low. He watched as she pulled a bag of things out from under the bed.

"Um, I should go," Ace said quietly.

Her voice was firm, "I promised the inn, so you can stay. You're a traveller, aren't you? Where would you go to?"

Ace also heard, quite clearly, the doubt she had reserved for him. She didn't think he'd return to the tavern to work once she let him out of her sight.

"I'd sleep under the stars," Ace answered. "I do it often enough."

"There are no stars to be seen when the night sky is covered with clouds. It smells like rain tonight. If you're really a traveller, you should know that."

Ace awkwardly entered the room and shut the door behind him. His hand strayed back to the door handle, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. He shook the feeling away, reminding himself that he'd been in the much smaller confines of a ship before. To him, this tiny room was as airy and spacious as acres of pastureland.

Lazue walked towards him and Ace unwillingly tensed, then relaxed as he watched the woman move to place her hand over a knob above the tub's facet. She turned the knob and water gushed out with an unbelievable amount of pressure.

"What are you doing?" Ace asked warily.

She gave him a look that belittled. "Drawing a bath," she said dryly. "You might not notice it but you reek something fierce."

She straightened and watched the water rapidly fill the tub. "This room doesn't have any windows or ventilation, so there's no way in hell I'm going to let you stink this place up."

After that confession Ace felt scolded and aggravated, the two standing in silence watching the water gush from the tap. When it was at an appropriate level, Lazue shut off the water and strode away briskly, leaving Ace to stare after her.

She once again went back to her bag that she'd retrieved from under the bed and rummaged through it. Ace figured it was her meagre belongings. He caught sight of the nightgown she pulled from the bag and felt a foreign heat unlike his Devil Fruit abilities creep up his neck to colour his ears.

He quickly turned his attention back to the tub and felt the water with his fingers. As the liquid touched his flesh, he withdrew his hand with a sharp intake of breath. "That's cold."

"The water in this place is very one-temperature-fits-all-purposes." Lazue's voice was just as icy as the water. This information made Ace frown and he flexed his fingers to get the blood flowing through them. His fiery body instantaneously returned his wet digits to their previous temperature. Still, he was going to have to do something about that water…

"Face the wall, I'm getting changed," Lazue said abruptly.

Hurriedly, Ace did as he was instructed, very pointedly taking in the rotting wood planks that made up the room. He heard her toss garments onto the bed and slip into the nightgown she'd pulled out earlier. _So daring_, he thought. _What if I had turned around to look?_

He had to check himself for flames at that thought. He had heated right up.

"Well, I'm going to bed," Lazue said at last, freeing Ace from his staring contest with the wall. "Make sure to dry off well before you climb in. I don't want the sheets getting wet or we'll freeze. There's no heat in this place at night and the temperature goes plummeting down."

"I'll be sleeping on the floor."

"I'm not sharing a blanket with you if you're going to be down there."

Ace shrugged as he turned around to face the sound of her frosty voice. He was met with the sight of her nightgown riding up to expose creamy legs as she crawled under the blankets. She didn't notice his sudden staring, instead facing away from him on the bed.

Embarrassingly enough, Ace felt a sudden friction against his crotch and glared down at the bulge that had sprung up. Without further contemplation, Ace shed his clothes and dove into the icy water without pre-heating it as he'd been planning.

The water drove his arousal down and replaced it with goosebumps. Ace tensed and released heat from the internal inferno that burned inside him, warming the water.

Despite having brought the temperature of the water up to a scalding degree that made him want to sit there forever in bliss, Ace finished bathing in record time. He checked and double checked to make sure the girl was still facing the wall, then climbed out of the tub and dried himself off using his own unique abilities. There was a towel handy, but he didn't want to dawdle. Instead he pulled his shorts back on amid the steam that had risen off his body during the self-drying process. Ace knew the evaporated water would soon adhere itself to the ceiling, out of sight, and that he needn't worry about being questioned.

Besides, the woman hadn't moved much from her place in bed. He would know, as he'd been watching her discreetly as he washed the dirt and grim off of his body. In the privacy of his thoughts he'd wondered what her hands would feel like washing the dust of the day away.

Even though she came across as a cold and callous person, she wasstill a _woman _currently clad in nothing but a thin piece of fabric.

Now, dressed decently enough for the moment, he padded up to the bedside. There was a single candle burning next to Lazue's face that she had lit sometime when he'd been facing the wall. It illuminated her features. He gazed at her, remaining as still as he could.

Ace knew she wasn't asleep. Her breathing was irregular. Secondly, her face still held a crisp frown that appeared to deepen the longer Ace loomed over her.

At last, Ace decided his actions were rude and unwelcome. He scuffed the floor with his bare feet, noting that it seemed clean enough to lie down on. Not that he was really one for cleanliness. He sprawled out on his back on the floor at the end of the bed, taking the shirt Lazue had bought him and wadding it up to use as a pillow.

Even from this position he could see the candlelight flickering and dancing on the walls. He raised a hand towards the flame, effortlessly found the essence of its life, and snuffed it out, plunging the room into darkness.

Lazue would have thought it was merely candlewax that submerged the flames.

His chronic sleepiness, much to his disappointment, didn't take over his senses. He closed his eyes and imagined that he was back in the barracks with the rest of his crew. But Lazue's breathing didn't equal the breathing of all of his nakama crammed into the berth below deck. He sighed and shifted his position. He had been able to find sleep in worse places than the floor of an inn but there was still an uneasiness lodged in his stomach that kept him from shutting down his brain for the night.

He tossed and turned fitfully. Surrounded by boring darkness an eternity passed him by, yet he knew it was only an hour or so since he'd lain down. He rolled over onto his side for the umpteenth time, letting loose a loud creak. Suddenly something was dropped onto his head. He fingered it curiously in the gloom and made it out to be an abrasive blanket.

He sat up with the blanket in his hands and was about to throw it back on top of Lazue, thinking that she had kicked it off her body accidentally in her sleep, when her voice filled his ears. "If you don't stop shivering and making noise I'm going to suffocate you with the one remaining blanket I have."

"I don't need this," Ace informed her, sitting up and throwing the blanket back onto the bed. "I'm not cold." She had been mistaking his fits for shivers, something that he hadn't experienced for a long time since eating his Devil Fruit. The stint in the bathtub had been an accident he attributed to the presence of a woman.

An exasperated sigh was heard as Lazue sat up. "You know what? Just get into bed, right now. And bring the damn blanket."

Something in the tone of her voice made Ace get up and do as she wished. He tentatively slid into bed next to her, careful to not get too close. A pair of hands snatched up the blanket he'd brought along from him and Lazue threw it up into the air to spread out over their bodies.

Then, just as suddenly, Lazue turned her back to Ace and settled back into the lumpy mattress.

Ace still didn't fall asleep, but he made sure to keep his body as still as possible so as not to deal with an overtired woman in the morning.

It was an exhaustingly long night.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N.:<strong> Thank you everyone who has been so kind to review this story! The next chapter will have a lot more action, trust me.


	4. Chapter IV

**...**

* * *

><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter IV_

* * *

><p>Light filtered into the room from cracks in the wall as the sun rose. Ace watched the room grow lighter and began to pick out shapes with his tired eyes, eventually rising into a sitting position. He looked around again at the small room until his eyes settled on Lazue.<p>

She had the blankets tucked up to her neck and her long brown hair fell in waves around the pillow. He was positive that she was asleep, as her expression was peaceful and her breathing was soft and invariable. During the night it had certainly grown colder in the room, but Ace had managed to warm the bed with his incessant heat. He just hoped Lazue wouldn't notice the strange temperature too much when she awoke.

He didn't really know the exact reason why he was concerned about hiding his Devil Fruit abilities from her. He supposed it was because she might become afraid of him if she knew the truth. Maybe even to the point of calling the marines to his presence. Mostly though, he figured it would be wise to keep a low profile while he remained in this city. He didn't want said marines to chase him out so soon.

It had been a while since he'd set foot on dry land. He wanted to enjoy himself a bit more. After all, food was always fresher when one was on land.

As Ace sat there, thinking about what he planned to do after getting out of Lazue's servitude, he heard faint knocking coming from down the hall. He listened intently, hearing groggy voices one after another, becoming louder as they neared his position. There was more knocking to be heard, each time accompanied by angry people roused from sleep. Ace slowly got to his feet and padded towards the door, this time listening in on a neighbouring conversation.

He froze as he overheard his name, settling in to eavesdrop.

"Portgas D. Ace, one of Whitebeard's men. This is his wanted poster." Ace heard the rustling of paper and a slight gasp. No doubt they had glimpsed the bounty set on his head. "Have you seen him?"

"N-no," the other voice, a man's, stuttered. "Is he nearby?"

There was no reply and Ace could clearly make out footsteps moving towards the door he himself stood behind.

"Why would you be searching for such a man?" The neighbour's voice exclaimed. There was a clear streak of fear in this person. "If he is in this city, why aren't the marines being notified?"

Ace let himself breath again. The man who was now looking for him could not be a marine. If he had deducted right, the man was some kind of third-party. If Ace was lucky, the man searching for him was one of Whitebeard's extended family members who lived the retired life. He had met a few of these men in the past, all happily settled with families and living an easier life than one lived at sea.

"Rest easy friend, the marines are mobilizing and searching for this man as we speak."

Ace was jolted out of his thoughts at this new revelation. He cursed under his breath.

The neighbour's door shut softly and Ace braced himself for the knock that was sure to come upon the door in front of his face. When at last it came, a frantic rapping, Ace steadied his fist and readied himself for a quick bit of action, just in case.

He swung the door wide open to gain the advantage and was surprised at the sight in front of him.

He certainly hadn't been expecting to see Tool, holding Ace's crumpled wanted poster in his hands and looking just as stunned as Ace was. Then Ace saw relief wash over the man's piggish features.

"Finally, I've found you," Tool grunted. "Lazue is here, yes?"

"Yes," Ace replied quietly. "You've been looking for me. Why?"

Tool broke eye contact with Ace to scan the hallway, then inclined his head before stepping forward, intending to take the conversation into a more private place. Ace allowed him in and Tool shut the door behind them.

"There isn't much time, _pirate_." Tool's voice was rough and Ace felt a slight hint of irritation well up inside him at how angered and disgusted Tool's voice sounded. "Listen to me, and then leave this island."

Frowning, Ace said nothing and Tool continued. "You were reported to the marines by _bandits_, believe it or not, the ones that live in the valley on this island and can't stand competition from pirates. The marines thought them normal citizens, not outlaws. But anyway, rumour has it you fought with them and killed one of their members. Is this true?"

Unashamed, Ace nodded. While he didn't directly kill anyone, he could be seen as the trigger. Besides, no one would believe a _pirate_ to be innocent of a crime.

Tool sighed, thoroughly vexed. "There's more. Citizens have been coming forward to the marines – who docked in the harbour last night and are combing this island searching for you might I mention – saying that they've seen you with a woman. And Lazue has been identified to be an accomplice and as such has had an accomplice's bounty placed over her head."

"What is the bounty?" Ace asked quietly, looking over his shoulder at the girl who slept unaware. She certainly didn't look like a fugitive, a criminal or outlaw, yet now she'd been branded as such.

"It is five million beli," Tool answered angrily. He was feeling nothing but spite for the man in front of him, dragging Lazue into such a travesty.

Ace frowned at the numbers. "That is far too high for a 'starter' accomplice-to-a-pirate bounty."

"You're a _Whitebeard_ _pirate_."

That statement, spat at him with malice, said enough. Ace once again glanced behind at Lazue, expecting her to stir to full wakefulness. She lay still, light snoring coming from under the sheets.

A ragged exhale left Tool's lips and Ace met the man's eyes again. "She cannot remain on this island. Most people know her face and will report her." Tool clasped his hands in front of him. "Now, I'm not going to waste breath saying exactly _why_ her tarnished reputation is your fault because I believe you know that much. All I want to ask as a friend of Lazue's, is that you take her to the next island along the Grand Line, away from the marines. So she is safe and not arrested for crimes she didn't commit."

At once, Ace agreed. As the circumstances were, he himself would have to leave the island today anyway. For tarnishing Lazue's reputation, he owed the woman a lift. "I have a skiff docked in the harbour."

"If it was a skiff with two black masts, then the marines have already set it on fire," Tool informed him gravely. Ace cursed under his breath; he'd foolishly left his belongings, which consisted of several changes of clothes, locked in a compartment on that ship when he'd set out yesterday for food. He hadn't foreseen the events that transpired yesterday and hadn't thought he would be gone long from his baggage. "It seems they know more about you than you thought."

Tool turned to reach behind him but kept his gaze locked on Ace, his hand finding its way to the doorknob. "I don't know how you will explain this to Lazue without making her upset. But please, take care of her and if she resists leaving this island, gently force her. She personally helped me out in the past and I am returning the favour."

The door swung open and Tool stepped out into the hallway, but not before pressing a folded up piece of paper into Ace's hand.

"Wait, you're leaving?" Ace asked, his voice betraying the sudden worry that had enveloped him. He didn't want to be the one to wake Lazue up and try to get her to follow him. He didn't know if the woman would believe a word of what was transpiring outside. And if she didn't believe him, then what?

"I do not want to be seen with the likes of you," Tool spat, his eyes dark. Ace watched as the burly man spun on his heel and stalked down the hallway, turning a corner out of sight.

Ace rushed to shut the door, knowing that Tool had shown the wanted poster around to the inn's occupants earlier in hopes of finding him and Lazue. He looked down at the paper Tool had given him and unfolded it, lighting the tip of his finger to see better in the dim light of the morning. He opened the paper and was met with Lazue's stern face, the picture showing her standing behind a counter in the tavern, drying a glass plate with a hand towel. If he squinted he could see the back of his head through the window that linked the kitchen to the bar. It was a slightly blurry picture as if it'd been taken in a hurry.

Below Lazue's picture and obscuring the bounty's amount was a piece of paper with a note attached to it. Ace read the first line, found it held nothing but an apology, and coerced his eyes away. He respected the privacy of others as a general rule. The note was for Lazue from Tool, with explicit instructions on the front fold to burn it after reading.

Ace's eyes then flickered over to the bed, in time to see Lazue groggily pull herself into a sitting position. His heart sank and he waited for her to speak, to be mad at him for what Tool had informed him was going on.

"Oh, you're awake already. Good, we have to get to work soon," Lazue said sleepily from her place sitting on the bed. She was running her hands through her hair, trying vainly to get the knots out. "This is your last day before I set you free. We'll be unloading a shipment of supplies from the dock today. It should be more interesting than washing dishes. I think you'll like this type of work."

She hadn't heard a thing that had transpired. _Great_, Ace thought sarcastically.

He then groaned as he realized that he would have to _immediately_ repeat what he'd just learned to her; he'd been hoping to at least have a few moments to prepare himself for this confrontation. He didn't know how to begin to tell her about her new status as an outlaw.

Especially when she was innocent.

At last Ace cautiously said, "Tool came by already. We're not going to the tavern today."

The woman's brow furrowed in confusion and she got to her feet, going over to stand in front of the pirate. Wordlessly he gave her what he held, wondering if he should light a candle that would help her see better the contents she now squinted at.

"This…" Her voice, weak from morning sleepiness, trailed off uncertainly.

Lazue read aloud what was printed in front of her, "Five…_million_?"

"Tool wrote you a note," Ace said hurriedly. He was silently praying that Tool had tried to explain the situation to her in that note. If not, he was seriously going to screw it up. He wasn't very good at calming down women; that much he'd learnt over the years.

Lazue looked at the note, her face going through a varying mix of disbelief, anger and sadness as she read silently. When she finished she looked up at the man in front of her, seemingly seeing him for the first time. Ace shifted uncomfortably, for in her eyes was fear.

"You're…a Whitebeard pirate," Lazue whispered nervously.

Ace inclined his head at the woman in awe. "I thought you knew. You said you saw my tattoo. Hell, you bought that shirt to cover it up!"

Lazue bristled at the memory. Now she knew why people had stared at them as they walked past. She recalled their shocked faces and hastily diverted gazes when she'd looked back at them. "I had no idea…I don't know pirate marks!"

This time, Ace was surprised. "How could you not know Whitebeard's flag? He's the most notorious pirate on the seas right now! He was well-established before either of us were even _born_."

Lazue flinched and Ace instantly regretted his raised voice. When it came to his captain, Ace couldn't help but get a little too passionate. He opened his mouth to apologize but Lazue cut him off.

"A pirate is a pirate. To a person like me, pirates are all the same."

Ace gulped down any arguments that were beginning to form on his tongue and reminded himself that _he_ had faulted _her_. Before long he regained his composure and said softly, "We need to leave the island right now before the marines find us."

Lazue's eyes widened and she clutched at the front of her nightgown. "I can't just up and leave! I've never left this island! You don't understand. This is my _home_."

A single tear snaked a trail down her cheek and Ace turned away, feeling guilt at being the cause of her misfortune. He hated it when people cried in front of him, it made him want to lash out for unknown reasons. Ace tried to find words that _wouldn't_ culminate in a volley of tears on the part of this woman but found he couldn't fully grasp Lazue's position as his was so vastly different.

"I've always been pulled to the sea," Ace finally admitted. "For as long as I can remember I've always wanted the tide to take me out with it. Dry land holds nothing of significance for me. I'm sorry, but I can't understand you."

Lazue sniffed and turned her back on him, walking towards the bed. No matter how bad he felt that he'd caused her so much misery, Ace wasn't about to let her go sob in a corner. She would be caught and imprisoned in no time if she behaved like that.

"We have to leave right now!"

"I get it!" Lazue yelled, her voice breaking. "Let me get ready!" She pulled the nightgown over her head and threw it onto the bed. She was bare except for her skimpy undergarments and Ace's face burned despite the situation. He hurried to give her some privacy, facing the wall and fighting to get his beating heart under control. Between their argument and her sudden risqué exposure, he'd gotten fired up.

Lazue came up behind Ace, toting her bag of possessions slung over her shoulder. Ace looked her over now that she was decent and noticed that she'd somehow gotten herself under control. Though her lower lip trembled, unchecked.

"I'll carry that," Ace offered. Numbly he was handed the bag and Lazue wrapped her arms around herself subconsciously. This was a protective and heartening habit she'd developed. She'd never known a kind, warm hug but had seen them given amongst her patrons. Now she found herself wishing someone would give her a comforting embrace.

"You'll have to help me find the harbour. We have to try our best to stay out of sight."

"I know the city well," Lazue assured him quietly. Her voice was as hard as a pair of sea stone handcuffs. Ace knew that she was concealing her anger for his very existence. He would be patient with her and hope that her anger wouldn't intensify and explode without warning.

They didn't spend any more time in the inn's room. Neither had anything more productive to say to the other. They gingerly slunk out of the room and snuck along the inn's corridor until Lazue found them an alternative exit. They were brought into an alley and from there Lazue brought them to a ladder. She knew how the buildings around the area connected. They were the same height after all and moving between them was child's play.

"You better have a way off this island," Lazue muttered as they kept their heads down out of sight and moved across the buildings.

"I did," Ace replied casually, wary of stirring her to tears.

She stiffened. "_Did_?"

"According to Tool, the marines destroyed my skiff."

Lazue made a gagging noise and Ace swung around to face her, worried she was choking. She glared at him. "Then what're we going to escape on?"

"We'll see what's in the harbour."

"You're going to _steal_ something!"

Ace instinctively clamped a hand over her mouth. "Shh, someone will hear us."

She pushed his hand away violently and swung out a sloppy kick, aiming to knock him off balance. It was easily dodged.

"What kind of devil spawned you?" she spat. He didn't answer, instead just offered a twitch of his lips to suggest that he knew something she did not. It irked her when men did that.

Lazue pulled a face full of disgust for the pirate and crept out onto the edge of the roof they were currently on. They'd come a long way from the inn and, peering out over the rest of the city, they could see the ocean. Lazue estimated they could be at the harbour in about five minutes…_if_ they had the ability to run through the city, which they did not.

Ace, meanwhile, was checking out the boats moored at the waterfront. There were a few caravels that looked to be cargo ships. Even if Lazue were a seasoned sailor it would be impossible to sail a caravel with only two people. He squinted for something smaller. There were fishing boats but they would be useless as they didn't have a single mast to catch the wind. Ace didn't want to row all the way to the next island and he doubted that Lazue would help him with any sort of work. He continued searching the harbour.

Then there was the problem of the huge warship bustling with marine activity. Ace glanced over at Lazue and found her staring with horror at the mass of troops piling out of that colossal full-rigged monster. He reached out a hand and touched her shoulder gently to break her trance.

"What the hell is with all of these marines?" Lazue hissed. "Surely you can't be such an important person that they'd send a _warship_ after you!"

Rather than inform her that he'd had _numerous_ warships chase him at the same time before, Ace remained silent. He resumed scanning, only pausing to wonder if his log pose had set. He wasn't sure how long it would take those magnetic fields to do their thing on Lazue's island.

Fortunately, the log pose strapped to his arm was pointing straight ahead, away from the island. It also meant that they'd have to go straight out of the harbour, though Ace wasn't sure if that was to be a blessing or a curse.

The wind answered him, pushing his hair forwards and into his eyes. Ace smiled in that weird way that moved all of the freckles across his face. He knew exactly what kind of a ship they'd need for their capricious voyage.

"Come on, let's go," Ace urged, tugging at Lazue's elbow for her to stand up with him. She staggered and struggled out of Ace's grip. She went back down in a slump to hide behind the wooden support wall on their roof.

"What are you doing? They'll see us!"

Ace gave her a daring grin. "At this point I don't think it'll matter." As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized something vital; he couldn't just pull his usual fiery escape. His smile drooped. He sank back down to the roof, feeling quite sheepish.

It was better if Lazue didn't learn of his freakish abilities before they relocated to a safer place.

"We need to get close to the harbour without being seen," Ace mumbled, still disappointed in himself that he hadn't thought about the woman sitting beside him. Even if they did make a run for it she wouldn't be able to keep up with his pace. That and there was a very high chance that the marines would shoot at them with their long distance rifles.

Unlike him, Lazue wasn't immune to artillery fire.

"Damn," Ace muttered, soft enough so Lazue wouldn't hear and become even more anxious than she already was. He knew just what to do, if only he could get them safely to the harbour.

Lazue watched Ace's ever-changing expressions as he went from giddy to irritated and then to a look that came across as downright defeated. "You said we need to get to the harbour without being seen. Why don't we just get disguises? Look, there are tons of people down there who haven't cleared out yet because of the marines. We could blend into the crowd."

Ace stared at her stupidly, wondering why he hadn't thought of such a simple plan beforehand.

Probably because he wasn't used to settling with simple plans.

"We'll have to hurry though, the marines seem to be telling everyone to go home. But look; see that merchant ship that those men are unloading down there? It was the one we were going to get our supplies from today…for the tavern." Lazue's voice broke at the end and Ace shook her arm to try to fend off the inevitable female crying fit. She slapped his hand away and any tears she may thought to cry were replaced by a burning anger that reached out and scorched him.

Ace would take anger over tears any day. He had experience with the former and could deal with it, though his methods were a bit heretical.

"Okay, so that schooner down there that you say is a merchant ship…are we going to pretend we're helping to unload her?" Ace tried to take the girl's mind off of what she was leaving behind and put her in the present. Lazue looked up at him as he sat upright and nodded that he had indeed guessed her plan.

"Then let's do this," Ace said firmly, picking Lazue up and throwing her over his shoulder. Without further thought, he jumped down from the building. The girl opened her mouth to scream but they were already on the ground by the time sound started to come out.

When Ace set her down on her feet she fixed him with fierce glare and slapped him. Hard. It made nary a dent in his composure.


	5. Chapter V

**...**

* * *

><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter_ _V_

* * *

><p>Over the next half hour the two entered a shady clothing shop, purchased some new clothes for Ace and headgear for both of them, then slowly made their way down to the harbour, ducking in and out of crowds. It became painfully apparent that the throngs of townspeople were dispersing while the number of able-bodied marines more than doubled. Ace figured that the captain of the warship had ordered most of his crew off the vessel and in pursuit of the targets.<p>

Lazue flinched every time she accidentally rubbed shoulders with a marine officer in the busy streets. Finally, Ace threw an arm around the girl, pulling her into him and out of the way of the men who were milling about with guns and swords, eager to try and be the first to spot 'Fire Fist' Ace.

At last they reached the merchant vessel. Ace strapped Lazue's bag to his back and approached, with ample confidence, one of the foremen who was leading the operation. The man looked down at him, sizing up the large brown afro Ace donned earlier in the shop and looking at Lazue who half-hid herself behind Ace, a black brimmed hat pulled low over her eyes so that her face was partially obscured. They were an odd sight, but so far no one had looked at them twice except this particular man.

"Excuse me sir, but could we help you out?" Ace asked before he was roughly pushed aside. Ace staggered, got a shoe stuck in a pothole, and caught himself before he toppled over, finding Lazue to be the culprit.

"Ah, what my co-worker meant to say was; can we take our shipment off your hands? We're from the Florian Postal Service down the street. There's something on board that we absolutely _must_ bring to the shop right now that _cannot_ wait until the afternoon deliveries."

The man stared at her, taken aback by her straightforwardness. "Uh, well, if that's the case–"

"It is."

The man, slightly intimidated by the force in Lazue's voice, looked down at a clipboard and started flipping through the papers attached to it. He found what he was searching for and tapped the board in sudden realization. "Then you must be Anne Bonny, correct?"

"I am," Lazue lied with confidence. She shot Ace a quick glance and he returned it with an sceptical expression. Lazue had to smile to herself; she liked seeing him so flustered. Plus it helped take her mind off of what they were currently in the process of doing. "And this is my assistant Al K. Holic."

Ace stiffened and Lazue nearly started laughing, especially when the foreman extended his arm towards the afro man. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Al K. Holic."

He slurred the words together and Lazue nearly lost her composure. Ace's elbow nudging her side reminded her not to make a mess of things. She collected herself once more before anything went amiss. The foreman glanced over his shoulder and called to the nearest worker to bring out a specifically marked package. Lazue beamed at Ace from under the brim of her hat.

They waited for a minute in silence before the foreman decided to make conversation. "The marines are looking for a pirate. I guess this pirate is supposed to be dangerous or something. They want to shut down the entire harbour. All of this just to look for one damned pirate! Can you believe that?"

Ace sucked in a deep breath. If the marines succeeded then they'd be really pushing it by walking out onto the docks.

Lazue giggled a bit, but the sound was incredibly fake in Ace's ears after hearing the girl's sobs earlier. She was playing this man. "The marines sometimes get too worked up over things. It'll blow over soon enough."

"They say the pirate's got an accomplice in this city. And according to the rumour it's a whorish woman whose making deals for one of the Whitebeard pirates. Or maybe it was the Red Top pirates? Either way, to think there'd be someone so high profile like that in such a nice city. It's kind of scary, isn't it? You folks should stay inside after this just in case that disgusting pirate decides to mount an attack on the city."

Lazue was beginning to regret talking to the foreman. She almost wanted to hit him and scream that he had his facts all wrong. That she wasn't a criminal or a whore. Ace, beside her, appeared unfazed. She wondered if he were used to people bad-mouthing him all the time. He must've been if the calm face he wore so casually was any indication.

A young man handed the foreman a package and the foreman in turn handed the box off to Ace. "Here you go Mr. Al K. Holic. And take care you two! It looks like the marines are starting to arm themselves with weapons. Don't want to be on the street when they start getting moody."

Lazue bid him farewell and took off down the wharf.

As soon as they were out of earshot Ace said, "Al K. Holic?"

"Aren't all you pirates alcoholics?"

"A few more than others," he said with a faint blush, dropping the subject.

The shop that she had mentioned was conveniently located along the waterfront. If they appeared anything but inconspicuous going along down the docks they had an excuse to back them up.

Ace was only now showing signs of understanding. It took her pointing out the Florian Postal Service to get him to realize the revision in their plan.

Lazue kept close to Ace, craning her head up to whisper, "You know which boat we're taking, right?"

Ace nodded, keeping his eyes forward to the prize at the end of this game of outwitting the marines. Lazue let him lead, watching with her eyes the movement all around her. There were marines in formation at the dock Ace wanted to go down and Ace looked down at Lazue as if to say, "Now what are we going to do?"

Lazue grabbed his elbow in much the same fashion as she did the day of their first meeting and strode briskly towards one of the marine formations. There were three officers, young with barely a brush of stubble on their chins. They tightened their formation as Lazue approached, trailed by Ace who kept his head bowed low. The façade would be over if any of the marines were to get too close a look at him.

"Excuse me gentlemen, but my companion and I need to retrieve something from our ship. It's very important and we absolutely cannot run our services without it." She gestured to the parcel Ace held in his hands. It clearly had the name of 'their' business on it. "As you can see, we're from this island's Postal Service. Please, let us go by."

The marines looked at one another nervously. Lazue could tell they'd been given orders not to let anyone pass. She fixed her shirt, tugging it so it sat lower on her chest, exposing a bit more skin than could be deemed proper. The young marines followed the movement of the fabric and shyly stared.

"Please, it is of utmost importance." The marines fidgeted as Lazue grazed her eyes over them. There was one boy who was blushing madly and she deviously walked up to him. "You'll let me pass, right? It will only take a moment of your time."

The man she singled out, who seemed barely older than sixteen, blushed heavily as Lazue playfully licked her lips. Before too long, the man stepped aside and Lazue walked past, gently touching his arm in thanks. She heard the man audibly gulp.

Boys could be so easy to play.

"H-hey, not you! You have to stay here," one of the marines said firmly. Lazue turned around and saw that the marines had no intention of letting Ace by their watch. He angled his head up at her helplessly.

Lazue doubled back, "Oh, gentlemen, please allow my assistant by. I cannot carry the supplies I'm going to retrieve by myself."

Immediately the man she'd targeted to let her pass volunteered to help her.

As politely as she could, she declined him. "No, no, my assistant here is trained specifically for this task. Please sir, let him by." She hated lowering herself to these _boys,_ but they would be in trouble if she showed any of her usual cheek. So she smiled sweetly and bore the burden.

Reluctantly, Ace was let through the formation, his face cast down to stare at the wooden planks beneath his feet. She had to admit she was surprised at how humble Ace could be given that he was supposedly a terrorizing Whitebeard pirate. Didn't pirates listen to no man but their captain? Yet here he was, being so complaisant with everything she requested. Apart from the wicked grin he wore under his afro he was perfectly tame.

The two walked hastily down the docks. Ace could feel eyes watching them move, probably other marine formations that were curious why they'd been granted special permission. He figured it would be a matter of time before they were investigated further. They would have to be swift to prepare the chosen vessel and shove off.

Ace sized up the two small ships in front of him. Both were fit to take for a quick escape. On one side of the dock was a cutter that looked to have her rigging in a jumbled mess. It might take more than an hour to fix her, time that Ace and Lazue didn't have to spare. On the other hand it was more solidly built than the other choice Ace had picked out from the rooftop, the sloop on the other side of the dock.

Despite seeing the sizable gash in her hull that stooped precariously close to the waterline, Ace's instinct told him that the Friendship sloop, named for where it had been built, was the better option of the two vessels.

Ace inclined his head towards that ship and Lazue climbed over the gunwale, taking in the sight of all the lines and other more complicated fastenings that held the ship together. She hadn't the slightest idea of what half of the contraptions did.

Ace jumped into the boat beside her, dumping the parcel for the Postal Service on the deck before moving to check out what the sloop's owner had stowed away in terms of provisions. Ace noticed that most of what resided in the bowels of the sloop was fishing gear, and he promptly shoved Lazue's bag down into the small hold.

"Lazue, go down into there," Ace instructed, knowing that he would resort to using his Devil Fruit abilities sooner rather than later.

Lazue was hesitant to climb down into the cramped space but did as she was told. She didn't know how ships operated and figured it was best to let Ace commit to his share of the plan. Her feminine charm had gotten them out here, now he could pull his weight.

Once Lazue's brunette locks disappeared out of sight, Ace flexed his fingers and leaned over the side of the craft. From here he could see the marines giving him puzzled, unfriendly looks over their shoulders. Rather than move to untie the ship, which the marines would obviously see and comprehend, Ace slyly burned the ropes holding them to the dock, careful not to let the small flames get out of control and become visible. The smoke dissipated under the slightly elevated dock.

The wind was picking up again, pushing at Ace's back. Now that the sloop was loose she was rolling forwards on the waves out towards the vast ocean. They were moving up the dock gradually and Ace was glad there wasn't a single ship in front of them because he hadn't unfurled the mainsail yet that would allow him to maneuver the sloop.

At about the same time as the frantic shouting started Lazue poked her head back up from below. Her eyes were wide as she looked at the growing commotion behind them. The naval soldiers were rushing out down the dock after them, shouting for the sloop to drop an anchor and cease her escape at once.

In response to the shouting troops, Ace let out the mainsail and grabbed hold of the ship as the wind caught it and shot them forward over the crest of the waves. The sudden jolt caused Lazue to be thrown from the hold onto the deck. The speed they picked up tore through Ace's hair and he lost his wig over the side, where it bobbed in the surf and resembled a dead animal.

There was an uproarious wail from behind them belonging to the marines as they watched Fire Fist Ace sail away with his supposed accomplice. Lazue grabbed a hold of the railing along the side of the boat and caught sight of the marine boy she'd bewitched. His face showed he was utterly mortified at his mistake.

Someone was going to get an ass kicking by their superior officer later.

"Here we go!" Ace yelled over the roar of the wind pushing against the sails. He wore a grin so absurdly wide that Lazue wondered after the intensity of the thrill he was experiencing.

She was too concerned for her own life to ask. Especially when she started to hear gunshots ring out over the waves.

"They're shooting at us!" Lazue screeched, clinging tighter to the ship. She tried to press her body up against the wood to keep out of sight and, hopefully, out of mind.

"We're out of range," Ace cried, "Don't worry!"

"Don't worry? Look, the warship's moving! They're _chasing_ us!"

"Don't worry," Ace repeated. "A huge ship like that can't catch a small sloop like the one we're riding. It's too heavy with all the cannonry and sailors. Plus the wind is blowing in our favour. We're getting distance while they're just bobbing along."

Lazue clamped her mouth shut and focussed instead on keeping herself firmly inside the confines of the deck. Even she, who was by no means an experienced sailor, could tell the sloop was gaining momentum. As she peeked over the railing Lazue could only watch as the island, her only home, and the warship slowly started to become smaller than the fingernail on her thumb. Soon enough they were no more than specks of green, blue, and white, and she was aware that Ace was whistling jovially while he walked around on deck.

The man was completely at ease while the ship churned and rocked. Lazue found herself envious of the man's 'sea legs'.

"I hope you know where you're going," Lazue called from her position hugging the rail. Ace stared at her curiously, stunned she was still sitting there where he'd left her.

"You can let go of the ship now. They're far behind us and if this wind holds up they won't be catching up anytime soon."

Lazue heard him and glared. He did not understand how sick she was beginning to feel from the roll of the waves and the constant wind buffeting her face.

Ace disappeared below into the cargo storage area and emerged with that ugly orange hat he was so fond of. They'd stuck it into Lazue's bag when they were buying their disguises. He held his hat down in the wind and checked his wrist where the log pose sat, then pulled at the rigging on the ship until he adjusted their course. Once satisfied, he came to crouch beside Lazue who hadn't moved more than an inch since leaving her island's harbour.

"You're going to have to come off of there sooner or later," Ace said with a smile that attempted to hold back laughter. She grunted, letting him know she had no intention of letting go of her lifeline.

"Here, grab my hand if you're scared."

She adjusted her head to properly yell at him. "I'm not about to drown at sea, ass!"

"It's Ace," he muttered before grabbing a hold of the woman, two hands wrapping around her stomach. She was so surprised at the bodily contact that it didn't take much of Ace's strength to rip her from her rail.

Lazue's first reaction was to flail as Ace dragged her to the middle of the deck. Then she realized he could very easily drop her into the ocean and instead clung to the large blue button up shirt they'd bought just for their escape plan.

Ace ended up sitting with Lazue in his lap. She was trembling more than the sail was in the wind. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it," he said, trying to move his arms to get comfortable. Lazue held him tightly, not liking that he was moving so haphazardly when they were precariously speeding along the tops of whitecaps.

"I _won't_ get used to it," Lazue warned portentously. There was a reason she had never left the island before; she couldn't stomach being on a huge body of water, knowing that the ocean could swallow her whole before she had the chance to react.

Ace let her stay snugly in his lap, hell he even subtly heated himself up because the girl was shivering in the harsh gale in addition to her trembles of fear. Speaking of the wind, he marvelled at how quickly they were going about. At this rate it might even be possible to reach the next island on the chain in a matter of hours, never mind days. He remembered looking at a map of his course back in Whitbeard's cabin, laughing and joking with the old man while he measured out the amount of time it would take him to go from one place to another.

Thinking of the old man made his stomach ache.

He pushed the feeling aside and wondered how long they'd have on that island before the marines showed up. Judging by how the warship plundered along at a much slower pace behind them they probably had no more than two days, if they were lucky.

Ace had a rough idea of the kind of island they would arrive in from his previous travels up the Grand Line, before he joined the Whitebeard pirates. The island would be uninhabited by people and would be classified as a spring island. He remembered finding plants that were edible on that island, but unfortunately he couldn't remember if there had been many animals to be hunted or not.

Such thoughts were making him hungry. His stomach growled and Lazue stiffened in his arms.

"If you're hungry, I bought some food from a street-side vendor while you were trying those clothes on earlier," Lazue suddenly said. Ace peered down at her curiously; he had no idea that she'd snuck off while he was changing. "It's not much though, I'll warn you."

"You're going to have to get up then," Ace informed her, starting to move out from underneath her. Lazue gritted her teeth and wobbled to her feet, keeping a firm hold on Ace's arms. In her mind, she would be safe from the ocean if she had a firm grip on an experienced sailor.

Ace hadn't the heart to tell the girl he couldn't swim and would in fact sink like a hammer to the bottom of the sea if he fell overboard.

"Don't worry, I won't let you fall into the ocean," Ace said as they gradually made their way below deck.

"No matter how many times you say not to worry, I'm still going to worry," Lazue muttered crossly.

Ace chuckled at her expense while he surveyed their surroundings. The Friendship sloop they'd stolen was certainly a fishing boat as it had all of the equipment pilled in a mess down below and out of sight. It was a relatively ancient boat, too – Ace could tell from the weathered look of the exterior – and at one point in the boat's life it seemed to have been used as a living quarters for a single person. There was a bunk bed built onto the side of the ship, but now it was covered with fishing lines and other miscellaneous garbage.

"This is disgusting," Lazue stated as she ducked inside the small cabin. "What the hell is half this junk?"

"No idea," Ace replied, fingering what could have been a net. It was shredded to bits as if mice had eaten away at it. He threw it to the side and started to go through Lazue's bag, taking out the single bag of food she'd bought with much disappointment. After taking a quick look at the contents, Ace took half of the food out for himself, deciding just to eat it right away on a whim before it went bad. Idly he wondered why Lazue hadn't tried to assault him yet for going through her stuff.

"We have to clean it out." Ace glanced over with his mouth full at Lazue and saw her eyes full of a new resolve. "There's no way I'm staying above deck all day," she said. Her eyes were fixed on the grisly looking tangle of fishing lines and hooks that spread out over the bunk bed.

He swallowed the food before she realized he had the intention of eating the majority of their supplies already. "Alright, you can hand me stuff and I'll throw it over the side," Ace said quickly, scrambling to get above deck. There was no way he would stick around and help her do the actual cleaning; she would probably get mad at him, and besides, he had to keep an eye on the log pose and adjust the ship. Not to mention he wanted to scarf down the remainder of the food he'd taken.

It was smooth sailing right now with minimal trimming on Ace's part, but when they started approaching the next island he knew they'd be in for some strange weather. Most likely just simple rain showers as it was to be a spring island according to his hazy memory. As it was never safe to be certain on the Grand Line, however, he had to prepare the ship to handle more, just in case.

In between throwing away whatever Lazue chucked out from the berth, Ace went to work thoroughly checking all of the rigging, which, admittedly, wasn't much. He found a few ropes were fraying and in need of a replacement. Seeing as they certainly didn't have much to spare on the sloop, Ace instead pulled fragments of rope off of whatever Lazue threw at him and lashed them together.

Eventually, after many pounds of broken netting and fishing line later, Lazue threw something up on deck that Ace found interesting.

He unfolded the thin canvas on the deck and traced its shape with his eyes. Lazue poked her head out from the cabin and watched as Ace held the sheet up to the wind, inspecting how it fluttered around weightlessly.

"What's that?" Lazue asked after Ace began gathering the sheet together.

He looked up, surprised that she'd been staring at him so intently. "It's another sail. A spinnaker to be exact. But it's been completely torn up. We'd have to repair all of the holes in order to use it."

"Sounds like it's not useful. Toss it," Lazue said flippantly.

"Not usable for its intended purpose, no. But we'll probably find a use for it sooner or later."

Ace managed to coax Lazue up onto the deck to help him fold up the sail. She stood with her legs wide apart, and waddled like a penguin. Between the two of them they managed to bring the fabric below deck and store it under the single bunk that jutted out of the hull. They both stood back from the bunk to look at that single bed, and then turned to each other.

"I'll be staying above deck, just to keep an eye on things. We have anchors we could use to keep us in place but I think it would be wise to keep sailing since that's what the warship behind us will be doing all through the night," Ace explained, moving to go above deck. But, before he could get very far, Lazue reached out and grabbed his arm to pull him back.

"Wait, aren't you tired? I know for a fact you didn't sleep last night."

How she knew, Ace couldn't fathom, but he instead shook his head and smiled broadly. "It's fine. I'm not feeling tired at all."

Both Ace and Lazue knew that statement was false, but the woman chose not to comment further. She could see that he was a stubborn, pig-headed man that wouldn't listen if she told him to have a quick nap.

And so, Lazue continued tidying up the berth and Ace went to sit above deck, trimming the ship so she sailed straight and true. Despite how small the ship was, they didn't cross paths where words were needed. Ace kept above deck and Lazue lay down on the bunk beneath it, listening to the churning of the waves. Eventually she tore open the parcel of goods intended for the post office and found a heap of letters inside. Seeing as there was no way any of the letters were ever going to be delivered, she set about absently sifting through them, reading any that seemed interesting. It helped to ward off the seasickness that threatened to make her vomit. Reading was a comfort to her, and right now comfort was hard to come by.

Hours later, after Lazue ate the last of the food she'd purchased and then puked it up over the side of the sloop with Ace holding her hair back, the sun began to fall in the sky. The wind still howled and the boat still creaked under the force of the ocean yet, even though the world was awash in noise, Ace could still hear Lazue below deck crying softly.

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><p><strong>A.N.:<strong> I actually forgot to update this story last week…my apologies. I hope if this happens again someone will pop my a PM or something, haha. Because the chapters are ready to go, it's just a matter of editing, uploading, and posting them!

Thanks again to anyone who was kind enough to leave a review!


	6. Chapter VI

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><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter VI_

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><p>The rain arrived when the island was in sight, pelting Ace into wakefulness. He sat up stiffly, berating himself for falling asleep. He couldn't remember exactly when his chronic sleepiness had taken him out, but he remembered it was sometime just after the sun set. Now the sun's rays were creeping through the clouds and lighting up the water droplets that soaked through his clothes and ran down any exposed skin.<p>

He caught movement with his eyes. Lazue was sitting on the deck, one deathly white hand gripping the rail along the side of the boat. She stared out into the distance and he followed her gaze.

His eyes set on the green speck of land jutting out of the ocean floor. Ace didn't know how they'd possibly made it with him, who was supposed to be navigating, _sleeping_, but they had done just that. Ace shrugged it off; stranger things had happened on the Grand Line.

"We're almost there," Ace said softly, trying his best not to startle Lazue. Now that the deck was wet, it would unfortunately be much easier to slip over the side and into the drink.

Glancing around behind her, Lazue's eyes landed on Ace. She had come up from the bowels of the ship this morning to find him sleeping upright against one of the masts, one hand propped up on his knee. She figured the last thing he did before falling asleep was check that compass-like device strapped to his wrist.

"Yeah, the island's coming up fast. The wind was really strong last night."

Ace nodded sleepily and went to trim the sails. They had shifted when he slept and weren't at maximum efficiency. By the time he finished both of the sloop's occupants could clearly make out the island's general shape.

"It looks pretty green," Ace commented, tired of the lack of conversation.

Lazue agreed decorously then told him, "It's got wildlife too. There are a ton of birds flying around in the trees."

Ace squinted out past the bow of the ship, trying to spot the wildlife Lazue was apparently seeing an abundance of. "I don't see these birds you're talking about."

"I've been told I have excellent eyesight. After all, I was named for my eyes. _Les Yeux._" Lazue smiled as Ace crooked an inquisitive eyebrow at her. "_Don't worry_," she said mockingly, quoting his plethoric use of the phrase. "You'll see those birds in about an hour for sure."

She giggled as he shook his head.

Ace felt an odd wave of relief wash over him upon hearing her good-natured giggle. He'd been concerned when he heard her crying last night, afraid that she'd be in a foul, tear stricken mood in the morning. But, judging by the faint smile that graced her lips she was doing alright. In fact, she looked somewhat cheerful.

Perhaps throwing up all her food yesterday had emptied her stomach of anger towards him too.

Wishful thinking.

"It looks like there's fruit growing on those trees. Yellow fruit, maybe bananas."

"On a spring island?" Ace asked incredulously.

"You sure it's a spring island?"

Ace scrutinized the island in front of them. After a few minutes, he began to see the strange colours Lazue had been talking about. He passed them off as flowers and began to think of more important, pressing matters. Like how he was going to get the sloop close enough to prevent him from swimming – which would end in him drowning – but not too close that they'd run aground on a sand bar. He also had the problem of having to direct the sloop into the island's only bay, which was a dangerous area to take a larger vessel but also the only spot on the island that Ace knew wouldn't have more than his height in water.

He hated compensating his seamanship for his disabilities brought on by the consumption of his Devil Fruit.

"Lazue. I need to ask you to do something," Ace said, deadly serious. Lazue gave her full attention, curious to hear him out. "As we approach the island we might come across a reef filled with coral. If we go directly over the coral the hull will be irreversibly damaged and we'll sink. So, I need you to go sit at the bow and look ahead into the water. If you direct me where to go we should be able to get very close to shore without getting beached. Can you judge distances?"

"Distances? Of what sort?"

"How shallow the water is."

"Oh. I suppose." Her voice didn't sound all that reassuring, but Ace had to make do with what limited resources he had. And her eyes were good, or so she had said.

Ace started preparing things on the ship. He brought in the smaller sails so they slowed down, leaving the mainsail in place to steer the craft. Then he got the anchors ready. Two; one positioned on each side of the vessel, tied with just enough rope to catch a shallow bottom and hold the ship from travelling farther inland. He finished his preparations and called the woman's name.

Said woman was currently gripping the front of the ship as if her life depended on it, grim determination across her face. She could already begin to see the outlines of strange things in the water. As if seeing through her eyes, Ace spoke.

"The black shapes are coral. Most islands with a bay have an inner and outer reef, depending on how the sandbars have been formed. You have to find a spot where the coral _doesn't_ grow. If you can't find one, and we're going to surely go over a bunch of coral heads, then shout and I'll drop anchor before we do."

Lazue waved an arm to show she understood, then she peered back into the water. At the moment it was clear enough that she could make out the sandy bottom, full of rocks and weeds. Looking past that and into the not so distant water she saw many black shadows. Seeing them now, and with Ace's description, she immediately thought of an impenetrable wall.

"They're everywhere," Lazue muttered to herself. She scanned the beach and tried not to get distracted by how close they were to the island itself. Any closer and she would be able to make out individual grains of sand on the beach.

"What's the depth?" Ace asked from the stern. He didn't know the vessel's exact draft, but based on the way she sat in the water and by how much of her cargo they'd already thrown overboard he was thinking that it would probably be only a few feet before they ran completely aground. Of course, Ace wasn't inclined to go anywhere near this estimation and hoped they wouldn't accidentally stumble upon a shallow sand bar any time soon.

"A few fathoms!" Lazue called over her shoulder. "Two, I think!"

Two fathoms. Twelve feet of water. That was ridiculously shallow, even for a bay such as this one. There had to be a sandbar near. "Which way do I steer?" he called.

Lazue was silent, trying to pick a break in the coral that was large enough for a ship to pass through. There were several small breaks from what she could see, but none bigger than half of the boat's width.

Then she saw it, way out of the corner of her eye. Madly she flung her arm out to the right, signalling and calling out, "Right, right! Or we're going to miss it!"

Ace swung wide, spurred on by Lazue's frantic gesturing. The boat tipped dangerously as it nearly went horizontal along the waves and Lazue's frightened voice rang out as she was peppered with spray, indecipherable.

"Which way?"

"Still right!" Lazue called back, her arms signalling wildly.

From the stern Ace was following Lazue's directions blindly, hoping that the trust he was putting in her eyes wouldn't go unfounded. He knew the passage that Lazue found would be narrow and it would take a lot of luck not to hit coral heads.

"Forward, straight toward the shore! It's deeper here too!"

Ace adjusted their course. He was a bit relieved that the water was now deeper as that meant there was less chance of catching sharp coral on the hull. That and any sandbar that had been present was now behind them somewhere.

"We're going through the gap!" Lazue suddenly yelled. "There's got to be at least five fathoms of water here!"

Thirty feet was still not settling for Ace. Coral outcroppings could rise as high as twelve feet and they often formed strange sideways patterns that were misleading as to where their densest area was.

Ace looked over the side, spotting a multitude of shapes under the shoal water that had to be the accursed outer coral reef. He checked the other side to see that they were indeed going through a passage. Soon, much to Ace's respite, the blackened forms slunk away and they were inside the bay itself.

The wind picked up suddenly and started pushing them along faster. Before they could gain a surplus of speed Ace tied the tiller in place with some of the spare fish netting to keep their course and took up more sail. Even though they were in a stretch of safe water now, he knew the dangerous inside reef that hugged the island was nearly upon them. "What's the depth?"

Lazue suddenly pointed to the left excitedly, "A little to the left! Oh, and about four fathoms!"

Once again Ace adjusted their course, untangling the netting around the tiller. They moved forward, Ace's hand steadily keeping them from going astray. Lazue's arms were working overtime. She pointed to the left, Ace adjusted, then she pointed back towards the right. Ace tried again and again until Lazue's hands stopped making gestures.

Either she was a paranoid perfectionist, or he was not as good with the tiller as he believed he was.

Underfoot, the ship was vibrating. Ace didn't need to look out over the sides of the sloop to know they were passing through the inner reef. The faint sound of scrapping told him they were kissing the coral underneath them. Quickly Ace let his iron grip on the tiller go slack. He knew that if rudder were snapped by a collision with the coral they would no longer have a working ship.

The vibrations on the ship lessened, then ceased altogether. Ace breathed easier.

"Depth?"

"Two fathoms," Lazue shouted. She was about to say something else but paused. He saw her crane her neck forward. "There's nothing in front of us now, just sand. But it's starting to get really shallow."

"Tell me when it's about six feet deep!" That would be when Ace dropped anchor.

They coasted forwards until Lazue started up her crazy hand signals again. Ace took this as the signal to push the anchors over; after all, they were no more than fifteen feet away from the shore.

The anchors sunk and dredged along the bottom as they crept forwards a few feet. Then the anchor on the starboard side caught on what must have been a rock, bringing the ship to a shuddering halt that leaned to one side. Ace could correct the position of the ship and check the hull for coral damage later; right now he just wanted to check out the island they had landed on. Lazue had been right about the yellow fruit dangling from the trees. It was a bizarre sight on a spring island, but a welcome sight as Ace felt his stomach growl.

The pirate took his shoes off and threw them onto the beach, then grabbed Lazue's bag of belongings from the hold and chucked it onto the beach as well before she could protest. After careful consideration, he also gathered Lazue up into his arms. She held onto him tightly when she saw the steadfastness in his eyes to suddenly abandon ship.

Without looking too intently at what lay below the surface as he could see a sandy bottom, Ace jumped overboard as far away from the ship as he could manage, his feet plunking into soft granules. The water, unfortunately, came up past his elbows and Lazue did get wet, though not as much had she tried to make it to shore by herself.

When he put Lazue down on the beach she staggered forwards and grabbed a tree, attaching herself to her sweet, sweet dry land. He laughed boisterously at the girl's behaviour.

"You were hardly at sea for a day and a half and you're this glad to see dry land?"

"Shut your mouth, ass. I'm not an intrepid pirate like you."

Ace chuckled but said no more, stripping off his shirt and drying his feet with it before pulling on the boots he'd thrown to the beach earlier. He tossed the shirt over to where Lazue's belongings sat. He wasn't planning on wearing any more troublesome disguises.

He felt Lazue's eyes staring at his back as he went to examine a small stream that emptied into the bay. It looked to be mostly fresh water, which made sense to him as coral didn't grow in fresh water, hence how Lazue was able to find a gap in the reef.

"That is huge," Lazue remarked softly. He glanced over his shoulder at her, confused. "Your Whitebeard mark."

Ace touched his back feebly. "Sometimes I forget what it looks like when I'm out and about by myself. Then I'm reminded when I get back on deck with the rest of my crew mates."

"Do you miss them?"

"Yeah. They're kind of like my family. No, they _are _my family." Ace smiled fondly to himself as he thought about the different members of Whitebeard's crew, then Whitebeard himself. He hoped Pops was in good health, not that he needed to worry about the strongest man in the world. "What about you? Did you leave family behind on that island? I'm really sorry that…well, I didn't ask you if you wanted to say goodbye to anyone."

Lazue was silent as she approached him and looked into the stream at their feet. It was about five feet wide and from what she could see it curved around some trees and wound its way through the bush. She would bet there was a sizeable lake somewhere on the island that fed the stream.

She took her time to answer Ace. Finally, she said, "I don't really have that thing you call 'family'. I had one person who raised me, but she isn't living anymore."

There was obviously more to the story than what was said, but Ace didn't press for details. Her voice had held a ring of melancholy to it. Instead he turned his attention back to the stream.

"We should follow it and find a place to camp for the night – unless you want to go back on the ship to sleep." Lazue firmly shook her head. "Right, then let's go. I want to eat those fruits."

Lazue looked above their heads at the trees. The ones that held fruit were short and thick, with large palm leaves. The fruit Ace was referring to was a bright yellow colour and oval in shape.

They began to walk along the stream, passing by many trees until Ace found one so stumpy that he could reach up and pull the fruits down with his hands. He handed one off to Lazue who turned it around in her palms, brow furrowed.

"I've seen these things before. We served them at the tavern once," she said. "They have a thick skin but once you peel it away the inside is like a watermelon's."

Ace unsheathed the dagger he kept at his side and peeled the skin away on his. Inside the fruit was a pastel pinkish-orange, reminiscent of clouds catching the light of a rising sun. Ace cut the fruit in four slices and handed two of them to Lazue.

Ace dug in, while Lazue continued to sniff at the pieces she held in her hands. They had a sugary aroma. Before she knew it Ace was reaching for the other fruit she held in her hands and carving it up too.

Seeing his eagerness Lazue tasted the fruit. It was surprisingly sweet, much to her immediate relief. When they had served the fruit at the tavern she distinctly remembered that the fruit had a bland flavour to it. Perhaps they hadn't been fresh at the time.

As they walked deeper into the heart of the island Lazue took note of the relatively flat landscape. There were hardly any shrubs to be found – mostly trees of all varying sizes. Some acted as a canopy while others were tall but not very leafy. The only ones Ace seemed concerned with were the stubby ones that bore fruit. In fact, he kept trying to get Lazue to eat more of the fruit long after her stomach decided it was much too sweet to be consumed in large quantities. She felt she couldn't so much as take another bite.

Still, she was kind of hungry. She had eaten the remainder of her stowed away food that morning before Ace had awakened. "Is there anything else on this island?" she wondered to herself.

Ace overheard her. "There has got to be other fruits and berries, if that's what you mean. Try eating whatever you come across and tell me if you find anything more delicious than this thing." He grinned, tossing a yellow melon in the air and catching it. "It's a small island, so there's no way in hell it could support large animal life. But if you want to go off and search for different food, take my dagger, just in case."

She did and they separated with a promise to meet back at the beach in an hour. The island was so small Lazue figured it would only take her a maximum of two hours to walk around its perimeter, so an hour seemed generous. She wondered if Ace was beginning to get sick of her. Heaven knew she was getting sick of looking at his outrageously ugly orange hat and opposable blue smiley faces.

If they were going to travel together then she'd have to plot how to fling the hat over the side of the sloop some day soon.

Before she had lost sight of Ace as he crashed through the tightly packed trees Lazue had asked, "How many days are we staying on this island?"

"Two days, if we're lucky. That warship was moving pretty slow, plus I don't want to get stuck in that bay when it arrives and starts shooting at us. Start gathering edible stuff if you can because we'll need the provisions."

She had agreed whole-heartily. Now though, with Ace nowhere to be seen, she let the mask she'd worn fall away. She didn't want to gather provisions for that would mean they'd be travelling and on the move for who knows how long. It wasn't the life Lazue had imagined for herself and the self-pitying was something she'd never really practiced up until this point, despite how rough her life had been on the past island.

Lazue liked regularity. She liked knowing she could wake up everyday and do the same old thing. For that reason alone she liked working at the tavern; it paid her well enough to live more or less full-time at the inn and it was easy to sneak food while at work. Now she only had a few coins she'd saved up for extra food and they weren't at all useful in her current situation.

In fact, now that she thought about it, the only useful thing she had at the moment was the pirate.

She fingered the hilt of the dagger. It was slippery as if it had been coated in some strange formula. Or perhaps Ace hadn't washed it in the stream to rid it of the fruit's juices before he handed it to her. Maybe the reason it felt so strange in her hands was because she'd never held a weapon before that's purpose was to kill.

Startled, she dropped the dagger on the ground, unnerved at the very thought of where it could have been. What the blade could have sunk into. She had to remind herself that no matter how nice Ace acted he was still a wanted criminal and had doubtlessly slain another person before. A chill ran through her. She hugged herself, hands crossing and settling on her upper arms.

She couldn't forgive anyone who murdered, not after what had happened during her childhood. Ace had asked about her family and it was true that she didn't have one; however, the person closest to her had ended up being a victim of a rampant drunk and his knife. She had been among the unfortunate souls to find the body of the orphanage woman who'd taken her in and raised her from a baby to a teenager.

It had been the most traumatizing experience of her life and she had fled the orphanage soon after. That had been nearly six years ago, during which time she moved about through the city, doing meagre jobs before coming across the tavern. Tool had managed to get her a job there after seeing how pitiful she looked in her dirty rags for clothes. She had always tried to ease his workload in any way she could to thank the man for helping her.

Thinking about all of this brought fresh tears to her eyes and she kicked the dagger angrily. It skirted through the thicket and bounced over a tree trunk out of sight.

She frowned at what she'd done to another person's belonging, then took off after Ace's blade, ducking to avoid a low leafy tree that was just starting to flower. She located the dagger and stared at it, unwilling to touch it any further in case she spotted something on the hilt, like a speck of dried blood. Before long she found herself sitting against the tree, gazing up into the canopy overhead. She looked anywhere but at the dagger that symbolized the reality of her predicament.

Now that she was looking closely at her world she could see that beyond a thin line of trees was the ocean once again. She then diverted her attention to those same trees and saw that there were small green apricots tucked in amongst the leaves. She also noticed a bush in front of her that had small bluish berries.

She was still hungry, so went over and picked a few of the bluish berries and sat back down under the tree to test them out. They tasted pretty bland, but she wouldn't complain as they were, in a way, better than the sweet yellow melons that still dotted the landscape all around her. Those had made her want to throw up after eating so many slices.

Lazue gazed up at the trees, looking for those tiny green apricots. They were numerous in quantity but far too high up to do anything about. She looked back at the tree she'd been sitting under where the dagger was lying harmlessly. That particular tree was of a medium size and it seemed the other trees had all grown in a wide arc around it, much to her bemusement. Perhaps it was a bully of a tree, growing its roots out sideways rather than down and sucking out all the surrounding nutrients.

Still wondering after that tree, which was a deep mahogany colour with dark green palm leaves, she noticed something up near the top of it. A closer inspection revealed that this tree, too, bore fruits. Ace had been right about the forest having an abundance of plant life.

This tree's fruit, which looked to be deep red in colour, was within reach of a thrown rock. Lazue found a good-sized stone that covered most of her palm and chucked it at the fruit, hoping to knock it down. Her aim was low and the stone struck the tree trunk below it with a loud crack.

Despite her obvious miss, the tree reared back and dropped its fruit to the forest floor. She ran up to it and her brow instantly furrowed. Sitting back on her haunches, she scrutinized it thoroughly. Her skin crawled. She felt funny sitting near this thing, like a weight was pressing down on her body.

No matter which way she looked at it, this was a peculiar fruit.

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><p><strong>A.N.:<strong> This chapter is to compensate for me missing last week's update! Anyways, thank you everyone who kindly left a review! I appreciate every one of them!


	7. Chapter VII

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><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter VII_

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><p>Licking her lips to moisten them, Lazue stared at the fruit that had fallen from the tree. It was a single entity and, looking up, she realized there had been only one such fruit on the tree itself.<p>

She noticed first how the fruit caught the sun that filtered through the leafy trees and reflected it back, sort of like how a liquid might shimmer under light. Secondly, she noticed the strange swirl designs that marked the fruit. Odd, but she decided the wind banging the fruit against the tree trunk had bruised it.

That odd feeling, almost like an intense dread, that had rooted into her subconscious after she sat down in the grass hadn't gone away. She blamed it on hunger. That, or the seasickness from this morning was making a belated appearance.

Gently, Lazue lifted the fruit, noticing how soft the red flesh was. She was glad she wouldn't need to make use of the dagger to peel it but worried that perhaps the fruit had spoiled. She gave it an experimental sniff. It smelled like nothing she knew. But the blue berries she'd eaten hadn't sated her hunger so her appetite won out.

She took a tentative bite and nearly retched. It tasted absolutely vile and slid down her throat like viscous mud. She hadn't considered whether it was poisonous or not and now she was regretting being so adventurous. She forced herself to cough, gauging whether or not it would be possible to throw up what she'd inadvertently eaten.

While she coughed and glared at the disgusting fruit she failed to notice Ace come up behind her. He saw what was in her hands, knew what it was instantly. He rushed forward, snatched the fruit from her and hurtled it into the sea. It hit the water with a soft _thlunk_ and sunk faster than a stone as if the ocean itself were pulling it down to its murky black depths.

Ace, panting and wide-eyed, asked, "Did you eat it? Tell me you didn't eat it!"

"I had a bite, that's all," she said nonchalantly. She wasn't feeling any worse for wear and had decided not to avoid purging her stomach. It might make the fluttery feeling in her gut worse. "Probably not enough to kill me."

"Y-you, you _bit it_? You just _consumed_ a Devil Fruit!" he cried, his hands pulling the sides of the orange hat down over his ears in frustration.

Not grasping the situation, but recognizing Ace's anger, Lazue yelled back at him just as fiercely. "_You_ were the one who told me to just eat anything I could find to try and find something delicious for your tummy! It's your fault that I'm probably poisoned!"

She recognized how ridiculously childish she sounded, trying to place the blame on him, but didn't care at the moment because his sudden unease was scaring her to death under all the anger.

"Do you even know what a Devil Fruit is?"

Lazue had just about enough of this man. She threw herself on him, knocked him to the ground, and gave him the hardest punch to the nose she could muster.

She cried out when his face melted into ruby flames, encircling her flesh up to her wrist. In her haste to jump away from him, her ankle caught in the man's oversized belt. She tripped and fell, dragging Ace's rapidly disintegrating body on top of her.

Her eyes slammed shut out of pure fright. She expected she'd be burned until nothing remained of her. But, before she had a chance to scream, she heard his deep voice whispering into her ear.

"I ate a Devil Fruit and this is what I've become."

Reluctantly she opened her eyes only to meet his dark obsidian ones. There wasn't a shred of malice to be found in them. The tips of his wavy black hair were burning timidly like candles and she watched the ensuing smoke rise up into the sky overhead.

At least his face was no longer deformed.

"Get off of me," Lazue muttered heatedly. His weight on her bosom was unsettling.

Ace rolled away from her and onto his back, staring up at the clouds through the trees that crawled listlessly across the never-ending blue. Lazue immediately curled into a sitting position, defensive and afraid of the man who burned at will.

"Your new abilities will show themselves soon enough." Ace angled his head toward her and looked her in the eyes. She stared right back with a curled lip, defiant, just waiting to see what kind of strange things the man would do next. She was nervous to see if he would spout flames again but also vaguely curious. She'd never seen anything like him before.

"I wonder what your power will be."

Lazue flexed her fingers, waiting for something to happen. She tried to snap her fingers to see if a flame would pop up there that resembled Ace's weird powers but nothing happened. She was perfectly normal and that suited her just fine. "I think…I got a dud."

Ace grimaced and choked on a bit of stray spit. "You wish," he informed her portentously.

"Seriously, I didn't eat much of that thing. Just a nibble!" she protested. She held up her hands and showed him with her fingers the amount she'd bitten off. Barely a smidgeon, in her opinion. Not enough to do anything…right?

"That was all I got to eat. When I swallowed the first bite of my Devil Fruit my powers came in a matter of minutes. I was walking along and before I knew it, the ground was burning under my feet and my fire burned an entire forest out so all that remained was soot. Then the entire island I was on followed and burnt to a crisp. Luckily, it was a deserted island like this one and I had a boat to escape on, but still. Up until that point I'd never done anything so destructive in my life in so little time."

As he told her this Lazue took note of how vacant and dark his eyes had become.

"You can't take Devil Fruit abilities lightly," Ace warned her.

Lazue pursed her lips. She wondered just how much she could trust this pirate to be telling her the truth. He seemed so…wild and unorthodox. "I've always heard visiting travellers at the tavern talk about these things but I thought they were just old sailors stories meant to scare small children."

He laughed hollowly, "No, they're real all right."

"Evidently," she snapped, gesturing to the burning ends of his hair. They extinguished themselves and she wondered how he'd done it. What special trick had he executed to control the life of the flames? Did he have some kind of telekinetic force thing? Did it just naturally happen and he really had no control over it? If that were the case she wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

After a while of pondering Ace's oddities, Lazue finally decided to ask: "How do you do it?" Ace gazed back at her, puzzled. "Your fire, I mean. How do you light yourself on fire?"

"For me, it's just a feeling. It's hard to explain." Lazue gave him a pleading look and for a moment he glimpsed how nervous she was about the whole situation. He took a deep breath, and decided to try to get her to understand. "My Devil Fruit is a logia type, so I embody an element – in this case fire. I _am_ fire. If I get angry I'll start to burn but if I'm sad my fire gets weak. I've learned that I need to feel a certain way in order to use my Devil Fruit powers effectively, so I've learnt how to evoke certain feelings to do certain things." Ace scratched his head awkwardly. "Sorry, I must not be making much sense."

"You control your fire with your feelings?"

"Um, well, I didn't know how else to put it. I mean, when I feel confident I can summon unlimited power from my Devil Fruit but when I feel insecure my fire is weaker. I don't know though, it might be a logia type only thing."

"…What's a logia type again?"

Ace had a feeling this would be one long conversation and not one he would like participating in on an empty stomach. "Let's make camp and gather food, then we can talk. I saw these little rabbit-like creatures climbing in the trees eating the fruit, so maybe I'll hunt a few of those."

"O-okay," Lazue stuttered. She hoped he didn't want her to watch him hunt. She hadn't the stomach to see animals so full of life killed in front of her. She had no problem handling something that had been long dead, like a pork chop or a steak, but live animals? No, she hated seeing that moment of fear before the final blow was struck. And the dead bodies with lifeless expressions…she shivered.

"Your dagger's under that tree over there." Lazue pointed at the whimsical piece of foliage. Ace retrieved it and thankfully didn't question her on why she'd left it sitting unattended.

They started off through the forest, back towards the stream. Lazue stopped for a drink, cupping her hands and marvelling at how clear the water seemed. It didn't taste odd either. After eating that strange, vile fruit she was more cautious about what she stuck in her mouth.

"I found a good place to camp and tried to build a little hut sort of thing out of trees…" Ace trailed off uncertainly. Lazue followed his stare and saw his handiwork. It was certainly unconventional and she had no doubt his Devil Fruit ability had been involved (if the charred trees were any indication) but it was much better than anything she could have come up with. "I was thinking we could wrap the spinnaker from the ship around the trees, just in case it rained. I don't know how well it'll keep out the water though."

Lazue shrugged and continued to analyze his cone-shaped mess. It was big enough for the both of them, she supposed, and it beat sleeping on the sloop any day. "It's good. I like it."

She could have sworn Ace blushed a bit but before she could further examine his face to see if it had just been the reflection of the sun on his dirty cheeks he up and walked away.

"I'll see what I can catch to eat."

"I'll gather fruit then. To take along to the next island," Lazue said firmly. This time she wouldn't mope around and feel sorry for herself. Not when Ace already put some effort into building them a shelter. For some reason she felt guilty about not doing her share and wanted to remedy that as promptly as possible.

She wasn't about to become a handicap to a _pirate_.

* * *

><p>Crashing through the undergrowth didn't exactly attract prey to Ace, but he couldn't be bothered to take his time and attempt to be quiet. It just wasn't his style of doing things.<p>

It quickly became apparent that he wasn't going to be catching anything at this rate. He stopped, decided to take a breather, and sat down under one of the many fruit trees.

He couldn't believe Lazue hadn't the foggiest idea of what a Devil Fruit was. But what was even unluckier was that she'd found and consumed one without knowing what she was getting herself into beforehand. She had been scared of the ocean to begin with, now what was she going to say when he told her she'd made an enemy of the colossal body of water?

He sighed and leaned back against the tree trunk, propping an elbow up on his kneecap. His log pose hadn't set yet and he was worried that the warship that was certainly tailing them would catch up before the pose set a course for the next island. He had heard some islands took anywhere from a week to a year to set the pose and, though he hadn't encountered any that bad on his own travels before, he hoped he hadn't landed on such an island now. He did not have that kind of time to spare.

He knew how dangerous it would be to set sail without having anything to point them in a set direction, but at the same time he wondered if that could possibly be a way to elude the warship completely. If he took off without a set course for the next island in the chain the marines would probably assume that he would be just one island ahead of them and keep chugging along.

It was a perfect, but deadly, deception. He risked sailing them into the calm belt or worse: getting them lost at sea going around in circles until they died of starvation. Still, getting to this island he'd had Lady Luck on his side. He had fallen asleep at the tiller and they'd still made it to dry land somehow.

Even if the log pose didn't set in time, Ace could still keep the sloop going in a straight line by going exactly the opposite of where the pose pointed.

As Ace was contemplating all of this, he became dimly aware of sounds overhead. He looked up at the treetops, his eyes narrowing as they homed in on the creatures he saw earlier, those rabbit-like things that had the agility of squirrels but were twice as large. They were coming out of the brush all around him and climbing the trees to get at the fruit on top.

Unwilling to waste opportunity, Ace took aim with his fingers at three of the rabbits, then shot forth fragments of flame that struck them full on. The sudden movement spooked the remaining bunnies and they all skittered hysterically, leaving the scene as the dead rabbits fell from the treetops to the forest floor.

Ace collected each of them in turn, surprised at how large the animals actually were. They seemed to have a basic diet of fruit, which was plentiful on the island. He hadn't thought there'd be animals larger than mice on such a small piece of land so the appearance of the rabbits was slightly bizarre in his eyes. There had to be something carnivorous on the island as well, or how else would the rabbit population be kept in check and the fruit trees not overgrazed?

With this in mind, he furrowed his brow and went to work skinning and cutting up the rabbits with his dagger. He hoped that Lazue wouldn't run into anything out of the ordinary out there and wondered if he should have insisted that the woman keep his weapon for the entire time they were on the island.

Just in case.

After Ace finished off the rabbits he headed back to their makeshift camp and washed up in the stream. While down there he found a large flat rock that would suffice for the purpose he had in mind and brought everything back to a central area, setting up the pieces of meat on the rock. Then he sat down to wait for Lazue to return.

She came soon enough, bringing with her a handful of the large yellow fruits Ace so coveted. She set them down beside Ace (as she had gotten them mainly for him) and took her place opposite the rock.

"I gathered a bunch of fruit and put it on the beach so we can load up the ship later," she said, staring hard at the meat on the rock. It didn't disturb her in the slightest, but she still didn't like the idea of the dagger she'd held in her hand so easily ending another life. Or had it been Ace's Devil Fruit powers that he'd used to kill the creatures? She didn't want to know the answer.

"Sounds good, sounds good. Thanks. Now, I want to show you something…"

In truth, Ace had been planning long before she arrived. For some odd reason he hoped that by further demonstrating his powers she might gain some better understanding of Devil Fruit abilities. "People who have gained abilities by eating a Devil Fruit learn to live with those abilities and make the best of things. Most people use them in combat and some of us use them for everyday things. Watch."

At this he reached out his hand and let it hover above the slabs of meat on the rock. Within the span of a minute the rock turned a dull red, steaming off any water that had remained from when Ace had picked it up out of the stream. The meat started to simmer and Lazue stared, astonished that Ace could do something so controlled with a mere motion of his hand.

"That's amazing," she said breezily. "How did you figure out how to do all of this stuff?"

He couldn't help the smugness that he felt spreading throughout his body like a growing fire. "For this, there are flames under the rock itself, and that's how it's being heated. Everything is trial and error. Once you know what your Devil Fruit abilities are then most people tend to experiment with them."

Lazue looked at her hands curiously. "What kind of weird powers do you think I'll get?"

Ace shrugged. He had no idea. "Zoan type Devil Fruits are the most common, then paramecia, and finally logia. I have a rare Devil Fruit and I doubt you'll have powers like mine."

She gave him a questioning stare, and he figured that he'd try his best at explaining the different Fruits to her. "There are three classes of Devil Fruits. Zoan types allow people to transform into animals, though I've heard it's possible for an animal to eat a Fruit that gives them human characteristics. I told you that logia types embody an element, like fire, and they're the most indestructible of all the classes. And paramecia, well, they have a broad range of powers and I guess they are considered the most freakish." Ace chuckled lightly. "I grew up with a paramecia type Devil Fruit user."

"Oh?"

"He's a rubber man. His body became stretchy when he ate his Fruit." Ace sat back on his hands and sighed wistfully. "Yep, he's my idiot kid brother. He's supposed to be sailing the Grand Line right now. Crazy kid."

Lazue felt a slight bit of envy as she saw the proud and brotherly gleam in Ace's eyes. Despite growing up in an orphanage and being surrounded by boys there wasn't anyone in particular that had stuck to her in a brotherly way. Children that she got to know had all eventually filtered out of the orphanage, one by one, joining any place that would take a young boy on for work. Many went to the marines, gangpressed into being ship's boys and powder monkeys, while others went to work as apprentices to butchers, stable hands, and occasionally blacksmiths.

She hadn't experienced the sibling bond that she saw so clearly in front of her.

"You must really love your brother," Lazue said.

Ace smiled faintly, memories of Luffy coming back to him and making him regret leaving the boy alone on that island in the East Blue. He had probably caused a lot of trouble on his own, not to mention the boy must have been lonely by himself. "Yeah, he's a bit of an idiot at times but I do truly love him. I'd lay down my life for him, if it came to that." He picked up a piece of meat from the makeshift grill and plopped it into his mouth for a taste. "I think the food's ready."

"I'll be the judge of that." She grinned at the pirate, a real grin that she hadn't thought she'd be able to make, and picked up a piece of meat to nibble on. It was pretty crispy and she laughed as Ace glanced aside sheepishly. "Yeah, it's well-done. All that talking did it."

He hastily ran a hand over the rock. Subsequently the meat stopped simmering. "Better eat it then, before it gets too tough to chew."

They ate and spoke some more about the Devil Fruits. By the end of the meal Ace was beginning to think Lazue had a firmer grasp on what kinds of strange things the world outside her tavern held. He knew she hadn't lived a sheltered life; that much was evident in the way she treated him, cautious to know of any ulterior motives he might have. Still, she had been incredibly secluded from the wonders of the Grand Line, despite living surrounded by that ocean her entire life.

As they lounged and let their food settle in their stomachs, Ace felt a prickly sensation run from his head, down his spine and settle in his feet. He knew what that strange, electrical current meant. But he had neglected to warn Lazue about it.

Ace fell forward into a black abyss, faintly hearing Lazue's anxious shouts.

...Then he awoke not five minutes later to Lazue shaking the hell out of him.

"Ah, sorry about that, must've crashed," Ace said, yawning to get the airflow he needed for bodily function.

She pushed him over onto his back angrily and then defensively curled up, arms around her knees. "I thought you died!"

"No, I have this thing…I get a weird feeling at the top of my head and when it reaches my feet I fall asleep. It happens so quickly and I can't avoid it, no matter what I do. Sometimes it happens when I'm standing up but mostly it strikes me when I'm eating a meal. I'm actually kind of surprised it didn't happen beforehand."

"You…_have this thing_?"

He rubbed his temples and touched the back of his head lightly. Sometimes, after recovering from one of his episodes, he would have a soft spot on his skull, not unlike that of a newborn baby's. It was strange, and no one knew what was wrong with him. They just assumed it was him being lazy.

"I don't know what to call it. Random-sleep-attacks-that-will-probably-one-day-kill-me is as fitting a title as any."

Lazue sighed; this pirate had more than one troubling condition that she'd never seen before. But if he was fine with these random bouts of sleep she could only hope she'd get used to them too. That is, if they were going to travel together for much longer.

The thought had been gnawing at her conscience for the past few hours. "Ace…?"

"Hmm?" He was busy massaging his shoulders. They'd gotten sore when he'd slouched forward and stayed transfixed, captured by sudden sleep. He hated the numbness that sometimes prevailed when he was in awkward positions while unconscious.

"I was wondering…how long to you plan on taking me along with you? I mean, let's be honest here, you're a pirate and I'm just a simple barmaid. I'm not useful to you at all. Actually, I'm a hindrance to you and your adventures."

He bit the bottom of his lip as Lazue retreated emotionally from him. "That's not true. Without your eyes we wouldn't have been able to land on this island."

"I'm sure you would've found a way."

They grew silent, knowing she was right. After a moment of being unable to meet each other's gazes, Lazue clamoured to her feet and walked towards the structure Ace had built. It was getting dark overhead and both knew that it wouldn't be long until the island became a land of shadows.

"I'm going to sleep. I'm tired," Lazue said simply, disappearing inside the trees. Ace stood rigidly, grabbed the remaining melons that he didn't eat along with the meat, and unhooked his dagger from his belt.

"There might be larger animals in this forest, so keep this handy," Ace said, tossing the sheathed weapon inside the little fort. It landed next to Lazue's hand and she shrunk away from it. He saw this but didn't grasp what such a reaction meant. He supposed he just caught her off guard.

Instead of lounging about, he took the melons down to the boat and loaded up the provisions Lazue had gathered. He took his time checking over the sloop and moving it so it met the waves head on, ensuring that the boat wouldn't capsize and fill up with salt water. After that he climbed aboard and grabbed the spinnaker, taking it back to his tree structure.

By the time he finished wrapping the trees in the damaged sail Lazue's soft snoring could be heard in the still of the night. He debated as to whether he should crawl in next to her or sleep outside under the stars, but a few raindrops and the absence of those stars answered his questions for him.

The rain shower was brief, but Ace had developed a dislike for rain after he'd eaten his Devil Fruit, so he tentatively went inside the structure and lay down next to Lazue. This way, he decided, if she got cold he'd be able to warm her up with his body heat.

As he got comfortable next to her, his foot touched something oddly cold at the far end of the fort, the corner furthest away from Lazue. Ace picked the object up. It was his dagger.

He felt incredibly daft for not being able to guess why the weapon was tucked away from Lazue's sleeping form where it served no purpose.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N.:<strong> Trying to get into a Wednesday update schedule for this story…we'll see if I can do it, haha~

Anyways, a big thank you everyone who reviewed.


	8. Chapter VIII

**...**

* * *

><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter VIII_

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><p>Lazue awoke in a sweat, wondering why she was so bloody hot. Then, upon feeling the crispy grass beneath her and seeing the light coming through the trees she was surrounded with, the events of the past few days came flooding back into her mind. Yesterday's revelations about her travel companion were no doubt the root of the problem at hand. Yes, the sudden heat certainly had something to do with the half-naked man and his thickly muscled arms around her midsection. Her back was pressed against his chest and his face was burrowed in her hair.<p>

She carefully disentangled his hands from her clothed body and set them down on the grass, noticing how they'd browned overnight because of his presence. Ace didn't so much as stir in his sleep, his dark hair covering most of his face and keeping the morning sun out of his eyes. Lazue gently brushed some of that hair aside, seeing if it would help to rouse him. It didn't. He was in sleep coma, and she didn't really want him to combust should she try harder to wake him.

Her body was sleek with sweat and upon feeling his skin she determined that Ace probably wasn't aware of his insanely feverish body temperature as he slept. Being in such a closed space with him she could feel herself growing light-headed as the heat made the air in their fort muggy.

She crawled outside and decided she would bath in the stream to rid herself of the stickiness Ace had unknowingly coated her body with.

She grabbed her bag of belongings, intending to change her garb. Ace had brought them back from the beach when he'd first built the structure yesterday. She slung the bag over her shoulder and stared at the insides of the hut. Ace's dagger had moved from where she'd kicked it last night and she knew she should grab it, since he had let it slip that his previous assessments about the island's wildlife were slightly off. But she couldn't bring herself to pick it up out of the grass.

Wandering down to the stream and walking along the embankment, Lazue searched for a good spot that was deep enough to wash her hair in. It was a rocky stream and it took her some time to find a decent place that didn't resemble a death trap. She stripped off her clothes and laid them out on the rocks near her bag before dipping a foot into the cool water.

After sleeping next to Ace all night the stream was a frigid shock to her system but by no means unpleasant. If anything it was making her faintly weary. She sank into the water up to her elbows and worked to rub off all the dirt and sweat from the past few days. A strange light-headedness was slowly taking over, and she wondered if Ace's heat had sapped her energy while they'd slept. When she finally managed to uncover her skin's true hues she sank lower in the water, intending to relax.

That was when she felt it strongest: a bizarre force being exerted on her body, pulling her down deeper until she went under the surface of the water completely, her limbs useless. Liquid invaded her lungs and she thrashed about, trying to struggle above the water. For a moment she tasted air and let loose a sputtering wail, and then the water claimed her again. She sank and her arms wouldn't obey her, wouldn't claw desperately towards the surface any longer. Her world was murky with only slight, serpentine flashes of light, and the rocks on the bottom of the stream were flush against her back. Her panic rose with every passing second she was held helpless.

Then, to her astonishment, the numbness in her body suddenly started dissipating. She found herself above the water, being dragged to the bank by her forearms. Her eyes flicked back and she met Ace's terrified face, then it registered that he was the one pulling her out of the stream. His hands were roughly turning her around, and she coughed up water, spitting it out onto the rocks.

He held her steady while she heaved, arms around her waist, the both of them panting. Numbly she was aware that she was fully naked in front of him, but her almost drowning experience clouded over her thoughts of modesty.

In fact, she couldn't stay near that water any longer. It was as if it was possessed by a demonic spirit. Lazue picked herself up shakily and wriggled out of Ace's hands, taking off up the embankment to higher, hopefully safer, ground.

She went crashing through the trees, choking on air and trying to get a hold of herself before she started hyperventilating. She stopped when she heard hurried footsteps behind her, suddenly fully aware of her state of undress.

Ace burst through the trees and nearly ploughed into Lazue. She couldn't help but shriek and try her best to cover herself, one hand covering her lower bits and another sheltering what lay above. She settled for standing behind a bush, but it only covered her up to her belly button.

"I-I'm so sorry! I forgot to tell you, t-that the ocean hates you now that you ate a Devil Fruit!" She stared at him incredulously as he drank in her appearance, moving both of her hands to better cover her breasts. "We can't swim! It's what happens when you eat a Devil Fruit!"

His garbling wasn't making much sense to Lazue and she only felt annoyed that he would follow her up here to shamelessly ogle her body. It didn't matter that he saved her from drowning; she still felt a stab of embarrassment that he was able to see her like this. Not to mention that she felt humiliated because he'd had to rescue her from drowning, in a shallow stream of all things. Anger that she didn't have a solid explanation for moved her to act out against the only person around.

"Stop staring at me like that!" Lazue shouted, crossing her arms over her breasts to cover them from Ace's prying eyes. Ace blushed but couldn't find the willpower to advert his gaze. Lazue felt herself get hot as his eyes raked her and she clutched her arms firmer around herself, fingernails digging into her skin. It seemed like her entire body was pulsating, though she didn't know if this was yet another Devil Fruit sensation Ace had neglected to tell her about or whether she was just suffering from extreme mortification.

Without warning, something fell from the sky and landed in between them. Lazue shrieked and Ace stared at the bundle of feathers before walking up to it and kicking it over onto its back to gauge what the animal was.

It was a white bird. A very, _very_, dead white bird.

Its eyes were wide open in a petrified state and all of its feathers stuck out in various directions. Its beak was pried open unnaturally. The gull-like creature had obviously died in complete and utter shock.

Lazue stared at it, her hands going slack and dropping to her belly. Her head was pounding relentlessly. She was feeling horrible for the poor creature and didn't know what to think of its sudden appearance. Meanwhile, Ace seemed distressed, which in turn made Lazue think the gull was something of a sailor's bad omen to him.

"Lazue…"

She tore her eyes away from the bird and saw Ace's concerned face staring at her.

"Cover yourself," he said delicately and she blushed, instinctively moving her hands in a criss-cross pattern to obscure herself from his uncouth eyes.

Another bird fell at Ace's feet, its wing spread out over his boots. Then another, and another, and another still. Lazue watched the scene, mortified, as the bodies of the animals piled on top of one another. Tangled limbs and dead, hollow eyes bored their way into Lazue's memory, creating a scene she knew would forever haunt her.

Then Ace was suddenly beside her, unhooking her arms and wrenching them away from her chest so they pressed firmly into her sides. She cried out indignantly and squirmed as he grabbed her and moulded her against his bare chest. Their skin melded and rubbed together, creating a heightened sensation of intimacy. He panted rapidly, echoing Lazue's own racing heart.

"You're some kind of paramecia type," Ace whispered to her, holding her shuddering form and wondering whether he should lead her away from the massacre she unintentionally caused.

"Those birds, they–"

"It was your doing. An accident."

Lazue choked back a sob as she peeked out of Ace's arms at the sight all around her. It was horrible; the birds were all a jangle of broken wings and obtuse beaks, feathers were strewn about and, perhaps worst of all, the eyes of each creature were dull and wide in alarm. They wanted to escape; yet they couldn't escape.

Those eyes, so empty and forlorn, reminded Lazue of her caretaker's permanently fixed gaze when she'd happened upon their murdered body.

Paling, she pushed herself away from Ace. "No! You're wrong! I didn't do this!"

His eyes were hard and he shook his head in disbelief. "Yes, you might not realize it but you–"

"_No_," she growled firmly. "This, _this_–"

Ace reached out for her, to hold her up against him once more in hopes that she would calm down if she were sheltered and kept from lashing out. Lazue slapped his hands away and took off into the trees, back towards the stream.

She could hear Ace hot on her trail. "No, don't follow me! Leave me alone!"

"Lazue! Please, just come back!"

"Stupid, _idiotic_ man! Won't you give a woman her goddamn space?"

Instantly she heard the crunching of tree branches cease. Ace's voice, tempered steel and oddly calm floated down to her. "Fine. But come back soon, or I _will_ come get you."

And with that benevolent threat, Ace was gone, making his way back to their camp, stomping all the way. Lazue stood at the water's edge, her feet blistered and cut up from the rocks and tried to swallow her own rising tide of panic. She dressed quickly, though shakily, in new clothes and stuffed her bloodied feet into her sandals, too scared of the demonic forces in the water to dip them in to wash the blood off.

She left her bag on the bank and wandered numbly down the length of the stream before returning to the forest. She wanted to avoid the death and decay that had appeared just as suddenly as a flash of lightning in a thunderstorm. Her body was trembling but her mind had long come out of its adrenalin-induced fogginess.

Her face was wet with tears. What had Ace meant when he said that the massacre was _her doing_? What had he meant when he said _the ocean hated her_? And, more importantly, _why had he seemed so calm in the wake of a disaster_?

Her mind told her it was because he was a pirate, used to the harshness of the world. Pirates were supposed to be heartless, thieving murderers. And, as much as she once believed that to be true, she knew Ace didn't fit into that stereotype.

She wished he did. If he were a ruthless man capable of loving no one it would be much easier to believe he were lying about her situation.

She pushed her way through the trees, ignoring how the branches caught and snagged on her clothing and nicked her skin. Her focus was on getting away from Ace, for he seemed to have all the answers, all the answers she didn't want to hear.

By chance, she ended up in the small clearing with the Devil Fruit tree in it. She stared up at it, noticing how different it looked from the last time she saw it. Its bark had turned darker and its leaves were browning.

It was wilting.

She sat under the tree whose fruit had been cause for her misery and cried softly. She had really messed things up by trying to get that pirate to pay his damned tab. But now, oddly, she felt nothing but shame for how she'd treated Ace, who'd never been anything else but kind and patient towards her. Ace, who had even rescued her from drowning, didn't deserve to feel guilty about putting a bounty on her head. He didn't deserve to have to deal with her incessant screw-ups, which she felt would only begin to snowball from here on out.

An hour passed her by, during which she sat under the tree and she cried herself out, then picked herself up and moved on. She was about set to return to Ace and apologize for overreacting when she heard a rustle. Something big, bigger than those rabbit-like creatures Ace brought back for them to eat was coming through the bluish berry bushes in front of her.

The creature emerged, a dark brown canid with long ears and teeth hanging out of its mouth. It peered around with bright black eyes and finally settled on her, crouched underneath the dying tree. It looked like a wolf, but it was the size of a tiger and had long pointed claws that stuck up out of the grass.

Lazue thought back to the dagger and wondered if she should have taken it after all. No, there was no way she'd be able to make herself use it. It didn't matter if the wolfish creature took her life, she _couldn't_ resort to killing. It was…impossible for her to knowingly take a life.

The wolf stared at her and she instinctively flinched back under its gaze. She could hear a strange pounding in her head, a thick thumping that reverberated throughout her skull. It was a beating that grew faster as the moments passed by. She reached her hands up to her head, placing them on her temples, and hoped she'd be able to keep her sanity in check.

The wolf's eyes went wide and void; then it collapsed, its legs buckling out from underneath it. Lazue froze, as did the throbbing in her head. Everything was still as she stared at the fallen creature.

"Oh God," she whispered before tentatively rushing over to the animal. She knelt beside its hulking form. It didn't move and its eyes were open, unblinking and unseeing. Its mauve tongue had lolled out of its mouth. She placed her hand over its chest, hoping that she might find some movement to signify its breathing but felt nothing through the animal's coarse fur.

She crossed her hands and placed them on the wolf's body where she thought its ribs might be, then pushed down with them, trying to see if it would trigger some breathing. She had seen someone who'd nearly choked to death and was on the verge of unconsciousness being resuscitated that way, but they had clearly been alive whereas this wolf was dead.

She bit back tears at what she'd unintentionally done. But before she could go and find Ace to tell him that he'd been so terribly _right_ about her strange new powers the wolf under her hands started to stir. She leapt away, startled.

The wolf lifted its head sleepily and gazed at her, light in its previously dead eyes. It seemed just as surprised as she was. Lazue slunk back as the wolf swiftly sprang to its feet, becoming a terrified animal in fear of humans once again. It stumbled slightly before righting itself, then bolted away from Lazue and into the tight throng of trees.

She waited in fear for it to come back and kill her, but it never did.

* * *

><p>Ace had been pacing the camp ever since Lazue went off on her own. He knew he was probably making a mistake, letting a Devil Fruit user who'd just learnt of their powers go off by themselves, but he felt he couldn't have held Lazue back even if he tried. She had been firm in her decision to take some time for herself and he could only respect her wishes.<p>

Still, it had been a few hours since the incident at the stream. In that time Ace had picked up the fallen birds and prepared to cut them up, intending to bring the meat along as provisions to the next island. However, what he had found as he sunk the dagger into the birds was entirely too unsettling, even for him.

When he peeled back the feathers of the first bird he'd noticed that the blood of the creature didn't spill out but rather clung as if frozen to the insides of the animal. He had touched the oddly lard-like blood and found it to be unmovable; it didn't even smear onto his fingers! Ace had by that time tried to slice open the other victims of Lazue's Devil Fruit and found that all of them were in the same limbo state. Their bodies were petrified and perfectly preserved.

They hadn't been dead nearly long enough for the bodies to freeze up.

He took a breather and washed his hands in the stream, grabbing Lazue's bag in the process. He could see her course as she went along the waterbed and away – little bits of dried blood and overturned rocks. He could track her through the bushes if she didn't come back.

Now, with the sun on its downfall in the sky Ace paced and grumbled to himself about how moody women could get. He knew his irritation with Lazue was just the guilt of not being able to help her understand her new powers and the worry about letting her go off on her own was getting to him.

The ship was packed and ready to go. His log pose had even set some time in the afternoon, much to his relief. He didn't know why he was being so cautious with a single warship in pursuit, but he chalked it up to how disappointed Lazue would be if he set the ship and its crew aflame. And, for some reason he couldn't figure out, he didn't want to disappoint her.

He heard the snapping of twigs on the forest floor before he saw her.

It was obvious she'd been crying earlier judging by the redness in her eyes but the firm gaze she gave him didn't betray any weaknesses. She walked right up to Ace and inclined her head.

"I'm sorry for overreacting," she confessed, her hair shielding her eyes. "I was just scared and confused and…well, truthfully quite naked as you no doubt saw." She chuckled lightly with none of the usual malice she sometimes wielded.

Ace blushed as he remembered the way the morning sun caught the water droplets on her pale skin, highlighting all of her best features. "Y-yeah, sorry I stared and, well…."

"Just forget about it," she said sternly and Ace nodded, though he knew he'd never be able to erase the images from his mind. If it weren't for the fact that she had nearly drowned and then figured out her Devil Fruit abilities he would've doubtlessly became aroused at seeing her without clothing on. As it stood, he was in a way glad she didn't have to see him get hot for her, as it would have made the volatile situation a thousand times worse. Plus, being around her now would have been awkward if he'd…sprung up.

Lazue, oblivious to Ace's internal musings, gestured at the wood structure. "Where did that sail go?"

"The spinnaker? I brought it aboard the ship." Ace scratched at the back of his head, feeling slightly ashamed that he'd been thinking about Lazue's body rather than her wellbeing. "We should get going tonight before that warship shows up. If it catches us in the bay it'll blow us out of the water before we can escape. That, or there are other methods of drawing out smaller ships like ours to be destroyed…"

Lazue didn't like the sound of going back on that sloop, though she forced herself to nod. It was for the best. "Okay. That sounds like the smart thing to do. Oh, but I have to grab my bag, it's down by the–"

"It's on the ship now," Ace said, hoping she wouldn't get mad that he'd moved her stuff. Lazue only nodded, preoccupied with her own thoughts.

As they walked down the stream towards the beach, Lazue wondered why she didn't want to tell Ace about the incident with the wolf. Ace, on the other hand, didn't reveal to Lazue the strange way the birds had immobilized in death, fearing that she'd be horrified beyond all rational belief.

Both kept their secrets as they boarded the sloop.


	9. Chapter IX

**...**

* * *

><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter IX_

* * *

><p>Ace had been right about one thing; if Lazue had been afraid of the ocean before it was nothing compared to how panicked she was now.<p>

After they had cleared the reefs in the bay and gotten out on the fast, unblemished ocean he'd painstakingly tried to explain to her that if she fell in the water she was almost certainly doomed. He'd tried to make it sound not as bad as it actually was.

Only he failed miserably because she was in hysterics by the time the sun set.

"What if I _do_ fall in? Can't you rescue me?"

"No," he said tiredly, "I can't because _I'm_ a Devil Fruit user, too."

"You said the _ocean_ would try to kill me, so what about the stream?" she asked accusingly.

He groaned, partially because he hadn't gotten a moment's peace from her yet and partially because he was dangerously close to slipping over the edge into sleepy land. "Any kind of stagnant water will pull you in. But that stream probably also had remnants of the ocean in it. Maybe at one point the ocean flowed through the island and perhaps, _just perhaps_, over time sediment built up and changed the lay of the land and maybe rain filled the–"

He cut himself short, noticing that Lazue was no longer listening to a sarcastic word he said. She was too busy glaring out at the waves that threatened to breach over the gunwale and onto the ship's deck. The ocean had grown rougher as they put the island behind them.

For the thousandth time since they boarded the sloop, Ace sighed. "Lazue, no matter how much you glare at the ocean it's not going to–"

"Shh, hold on a second."

A single eyebrow rose up on Ace's head. He tried to see what caught Lazue's attention but all he could make out through the growing darkness was the shapes of waves on the far horizon.

"It's them. And they've brought friends."

"Them?" He squinted against the black harder. His eyes still couldn't make out anything out of the ordinary.

"The marines," she supplied shakily. "There's more ships now. Maybe four or five…"

A small fleet. Ace tried not to think about how many people were on board a quartet or so of ships. Since, if it came to it, he'd have to torch the life out of them if it meant their escape and freedom.

"They won't catch us. Hell, they must not even realize we're here in front of them yet. Your eyes are likely stronger than their best watchmen's."

"No, they'd be in a bigger state of alarm if they knew we were here," Lazue mused, keeping her eyes trained on the barely visible specks that dotted the horizon. She could see the green that merged with the blue on the ships and the white of their canvas. It had to be the marines; who else had those colours?

When Lazue finally tore her eyes away from their pursuers she noticed that it had become eerily quiet on deck. A glance around showed her Ace's hunched form, curled up against the tiller. She crawled over, careful to always have both hands on the sloop, scared more than ever of going overboard.

She shook Ace and his breathing wavered under the force of her hands but otherwise he didn't give any indication of wakefulness. She frowned and looked up to the masts; the wind was gradually dying and they were becoming slack and in need of trimming, something she wasn't inclined to do. She hadn't a speck of knowledge when it came to sailing a ship.

"Wake up, you ass," she murmured in his ear, shaking his shoulder. But it was no good for Ace was out cold. She figured it was a part of his sleep attacks since she remembered that no amount of beating and bruising could wake him before. She simply had to wait out his episode.

Sea spray drenched them and Lazue gripped the rail tighter, then, after a bit of debating with herself, grabbed Ace as best she could given his broad chest to make sure he didn't start tumbling around on deck. He had fallen asleep with the tiller under his arm, slouching on it with most of his weight. Lazue decided to risk letting go of the rail in order to reach for Ace's arm, the one with the log pose on it.

She brought it to her face and gasped; the pointer was moving in a slow but steady circle, signifying they were going way off track.

"Shit!" she cried, grabbing a hold of the rail once again, this time simply dragging Ace's limp body along. He didn't move very far, not with the tiller stuck under his arm. She screeched as the waves all around them churned and sprayed the deck with a larger volume of water than before. Yes, now that she looked at it the ocean was getting much more violent.

It warned of a coming storm.

"Ace, wake up!" Lazue screeched over the turbulent waves. How had they grown to be the size of houses so quickly? "Ace, we're going to _die_ if you don't wake up _right now_!"

The waves buffeted the boat and all of a sudden a large gale swept them up from behind. Lazue, even though she hadn't experience with sea voyages, knew that this was no average tropical storm. She'd never had any experiences with hurricanes, but the wind tearing through the freshly revived sails was a clear enough indication to her that something big was brewing.

The sails, pulled taut and straining against their confines, were being whipped around hazardously in the gale. Lazue knew she'd have a problem trying to correct the tension and direction of the sails in decent weather, never mind a storm. She knew she couldn't do anything about the sloop's current rigging configuration, and so focussed all of her energy on trying to keep Ace and the tiller steady.

She remembered Ace telling her to meet the waves either head on or at a bit of an angle as opposed to letting them slam the ship's sides. With this tiny jaunt of knowledge she turned the sloop's tiller, trying to use Ace's weight to her advantage.

For the time being, she would have to ignore the reeling log pose strapped to his wrist. Their lives were much more important than the general direction they were heading in.

The sloop changed course yet again, though the wind and waves had more control over its new heading than Lazue did. She gritted her teeth against the cold spray and focused all of her energy on holding on to the tiller, Ace, and the ship. Her lifelines.

It was raining now but Lazue was already drenched in seawater, so she hardly noticed the pounding of the water droplets as she slid into Ace's lap, pressing against his unconscious form. She felt exhausted and vaguely wondered if it was the ocean's doing or because the initial adrenaline had worn off. She didn't pay any mind to the flashes of lightning overhead or the following roars of thunder in the distance. She only had eyes for the tiller and for Ace's face; watching intently, waiting for his bizarrely out of place calmness brought on by sleep to be shattered upon waking up and seeing the state of ruin they were in.

Her ears went deaf momentarily as a thunderous crack echoed through the noise of rain. She ripped her eyes away from Ace's face and stared, horrified, over her shoulder as the largest boom coming out of the main mast cracked and sprawled out on the deck, a mess of splinters and ripped sail. That was the main sail that controlled most of the sloop's movement, Lazue noted with mounting terror. It was half on the ship and half in the ocean's surf. It weighed their sloop down to one side, under the brunt of the waves. Water was rapidly overtaking them.

Without thinking, Lazue rushed through the invading surf on the deck towards the fallen boom. Upon reaching its base at the mast where it had severed completely, she started hauling it towards the ocean, causing the ship to tilt even more. She knew that if the boom didn't go over the side, and fast, they were going to be flooded. Leaving them to sink to a watery grave. She wasn't strong enough to move the main sail that came crashing down after she started moving the boom by herself, but the water on deck assisted her, floating the beam as she pushed and pulled on it.

A wave came up over the side and pushed Lazue up against the rail on the opposite side of the sloop. She grabbed for some of the ropes hanging around the side of the ship and clung to them for dear life while the retreating wave sucked the mast out to sea, claiming it for itself.

The ship immediately sprung up, crashing back in on itself. Lazue went flying off the rail with the force, hitting the deck. She scrambled to her feet, slipped, fell, and then started to crawl back towards Ace on all fours.

But, before she could react and grab for stray rigging, another wave crashed over the side of the boat, this time at a severe angle, flinging her towards the single mast that was heavily damaged. Her back and head struck the staysail boom and she crumpled against the wood. She was numbly aware of her body hitting the slippery deck and sliding with the receding wave but before she could do anything her vision went dark and her body limp.

* * *

><p>Ace awoke drenched, with goosebumps dotting his flesh. He frowned at the bumps, having not seen them coating his body since before he ate his Devil Fruit and then took notice of the situation.<p>

The wind was howling and the ship was a complete disaster. His eyes widened at the loss of an entire boom but what captured his attention most was the limp form covered in bloodied cloth hanging from the gunwale to the right of him.

He bolted to Lazue's side and lifted her from where she was hung up on the rail. At first he wasn't sure if she was alive or dead but, upon holding her closer to him, he determined she was indeed breathing, albeit shallowly. He ignored the sloop's ill-fated damage and took her below deck, lifting a hatch that had about half a foot of water sitting on top.

Ace set her down on the little bunk bed as gently as he could and pushed back her hair. Her forehead had a nasty split on it that was bleeding profusely, and he could see that the majority of the blood that ran down her face and onto her wet shirt had come from that gash. It was still bleeding, though not heavily, and he found Lazue's bag and ripped one of her shirts to shreds to use as makeshift bandages.

He worked quickly, pressing at the wound and winding the cloth tightly around her head. It wasn't long before the blood seeped through and Ace could only tie another layer around her in hopes of quelling the flow of dark fluid. He wasn't by any means a doctor, that was for sure, but he knew that he was all she had right now.

And he'd be damned before he'd let anyone die while under his protection.

The next thing Ace did was cut away Lazue's wet clothing with his dagger, leaving her undergarments intact and flinging the drenched fragments of cloth to the side. She would die a frigid death before her injuries did her in if he didn't do something to warm her up.

So he gathered her extra clothes from her bag, piled them on top of her like a blanket and then laid his body over hers, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to maintain a body temperature that would heat her but not scorch her.

He'd left the hatch open and the water on deck was spilling down into the hold, splashing Ace's back. He increased his body temperature, and any water that hit his skin evaporated, steaming off of him. The hold got foggy quickly, and Ace could barely make out the shapes of things through the eerie gloom.

He didn't know how long he hunched over her unconscious form, thinking nothing intelligible. He spent copious amounts of time running his warm hands up and down whatever skin was exposed to the elements, trying to make her violent shivers disappear. But, whatever he did, it didn't seem to be enough. Lazue continued to shudder and tremble under him.

Eventually he checked her over for other injuries and found that her back was bruised badly as if she'd swung into a hard surface. The skin wasn't broken but it was turning a dreadful bluish purple mess, one that would eventually turn black. He wondered numbly if the bruise was as big as his back tattoo because it certainly looked close.

During the time he spent at her side they'd been rocked to and fro by waves. Given the brutality of the storm it was oddly calm now, as if they'd been beached and the waves were dolefully lapping at their sides. Ace made sure to drape the salvaged spinnaker over Lazue to try and seal in some of his provided body heat before he went above deck to access the damage done to the ship.

When he emerged from the hatch the first thing he noticed besides the lack of the main sail and its boom was the peculiar calm that had befallen the world around him. Indeed it looked like the morning sun was shining through pockets in the cloud cover, illuminating the soft rolling waves of the sea. The storm had passed on.

He checked his log pose for the first time since he'd awoken on deck hours ago. The pointer was turned almost all the way around, meaning one of two possibilities; they'd somehow passed the next island they had meant to stop on, or they had turned right around in the storm and were going back in the direction they'd come. Either way they were off course.

Ace hadn't the faintest idea of how far the stormy ocean had taken them, but was even more startled to find that there was a mountainous region off the port side. It wasn't the island his log pose was set to, but rather a completely different one.

But he could only have eyes for the plume of smoke rising from the base of the mountain. Smoke meant fire, and fire meant people.

Doctors, with all luck.

He rushed below deck to check up on Lazue once more and found that she had shifted in her sleep. He didn't know if she had awoken, moved, then passed out again but he took this as a good sign. He re-warmed the spinnaker and Lazue's mound of clothing before returning to the world above.

Even though he could make out the majority of the island – hell, he could see a port – the problem remained that he didn't know how to get the sloop to move in the island's direction. The main sail that controlled much of the ship's speed and steering was completely gone save for a bit of ripped canvas that was still attached to the gaff just below the main topsail. He didn't know where it had gone but it was obvious that they'd been in a terrible storm while he was trapped in sleep.

A depressing notion crossed his mind; what would he do if Lazue had gone with the boom and sail?

He shook such a horrendous thought away quickly, reminding himself that Lazue was right below him in the berth. And, for the sake of her health, he was going to have to use his Devil Fruit abilities to get them to shore.

At first, he turned the sloop around using short spurts of powerful flame, acting as propellers. The ship came to life after floating aimlessly for so long but the wind had died and nothing drove the ship forwards still. Ace knew the masts that remained, littered with holes and ripped to shreds by the elements, would only hinder their progress, and he tore them down without further contemplation.

Then he jetted them forward, as best he could, with powerful bursts of fire that skimmed the water's surface before extinguishing themselves. He didn't know if anyone would be down by the piers when they arrived in the port, but at this point he didn't care if anyone saw them and recognized that he was an ill-omened Whitebeard pirate.

He would get help for Lazue, even if he had to threaten a doctor to treat her. Hell, not just the doctor, he was prepared to deal with the whole damn town if need be.

However, it soon became apparent the island didn't hold such a large quantity of people. It was instead a small village and he wagered it had scantly over sixty residents living in the midst if at least three people lived in each house. It looked like it might have a village nurse or someone of equal knowledge, but perhaps not a practicing doctor. Still, Ace didn't give up hope that there might be someone there that could tend to Lazue's wounds.

He was glad no one was out on the docks when he moored the sloop. She heaved against the dock, and he quietly thanked the ship for bringing them to the next island without sinking. Then he went below deck, pulled on a shirt to cover his pirate mark and hastily tried his best at dressing Lazue in some of the clothes he'd piled on top of her. Once she was decent and had been warmed a bit he sat her up in bed, spread her legs and gingerly sat between them. He wrapped her limp arms around his neck and placed her head on his shoulder, then grabbed her legs and hoisted her up on his back.

He had to hunch forward to keep her from falling off. It was a real trick to get through the hatch and back up on deck but he managed. At last he leapt for the dock and nearly jarred Lazue off his back on impact, being in such a panicked hurry that he hadn't thought much of how it might feel for her to be moved around in such a state.

His mind was single-mindedly screaming, _find a doctor, find a doctor,_ over and over like a mantra. Anything else was secondary and unimportant.

The first soul he came across on his walk up the hill from the docks to the village itself was a middle-aged man who gaped at the deranged sight before him. Lazue's gruesomely bloodied, formerly white bandages stood out against her mess of ratty brown hair.

Ace jogged up to the man who stood flabbergasted. He looked like he was a fisherman, preparing for a long day on the sea. "Please, can you tell me where I can find a doctor?"

The man stuttered before gesturing madly that Ace should follow him. Ace did, wondering where the man was taking him but hoping that Lazue would be more alive by the time they got there. In earnest he didn't care whom he was going to be taken to see, as long as Lazue would be treated for her wounds.

The man took him quite a ways through the empty village before rushing up a porch and rapping his large fist on a wooden door. Ace followed, taking the steps slowly for fear of jostling Lazue too much. He didn't want any of her wounds to open up now. There were a few cuts on her arms that needed to be attended to besides the gash on her head.

A woman opened the door, looking as though she'd just been roused from sleep. Upon seeing past the middle-aged man to Ace and his passenger, her eyes widened and she stepped aside, beckoning for Ace to enter. He did, though tensely.

"Can you help us? My companion is wounded," Ace panted, breathless and aching from the rough night they'd endured. The woman gestured for him to place the girl upon the bed that was right near the entrance to the little home and Ace obeyed.

Wordlessly the woman shooed Ace away from Lazue and started to look her over, peeling her bandage off her head and frowning heavily at the mess she found under the fabric.

"Is this her most serious injury?" the woman finally asked.

"Yes, and her back is badly bruised. There are some cuts on her arms and stomach as well."

The woman nodded tersely and told Ace, "I'm a midwife, but I can take care of something like this." He let out a heave of air from his lungs. "I need you to go to the house across the way and get a woman named Mistral; she's my assistant and I require her help to prepare a paste to ward off infections."

Ace sprung out the door and across the hobble of dirt that could be considered a street. He knocked on the first door in sight and a thin woman with jet hair wrapped up in a bun answered. He had barely explained the situation to her before the woman was pushing past him and darting back towards the midwife's home.

Ace was once again left in the dust and he hurried to catch up with this black-haired lady as she practically barrelled through the door. He got inside and the woman, who the midwife quickly told him was a retired nurse for the marines, headed straight to the kitchen. Ace stood helpless in the doorway until the midwife – who by now had begun to cleanse Lazue's wounds with clean water – told him to go and sit out of the way in the corner of the room on a stool.

Ace took her advice, not wanting to get in the way of the women as they worked. He didn't want to do anything to impede on the care Lazue was receiving.

The nurse ran back and forth between the kitchen, bringing with her bowls of different salves and pastes that the midwife applied to the wound on Lazue's head. Ace watched with increasing trepidation as the midwife's brows furrowed to the point where it was starting to look like something was not right.

That, or Ace was just overly worried.

He chided himself for falling asleep at the tiller, even though he knew it was unavoidable and not entirely his fault. Still, he felt nothing but guilt as the midwife and nurse rolled Lazue over on her back and gasped at the black bruising and swelling that they found.

The nurse ran for some more medicinal substances and they applied them to Lazue's back, then sat her limp body up to wrap her in bandages. When they finished they set her down and covered her with a blanket the nurse retrieved from a room at the back of the house.

Ace hadn't bothered before now to take in his surroundings, but since the nurses were slowing down and the situation did not seem as urgent he took a quick look. He noticed that it was a home, probably for a single person, though it had numerous beds. The beds seemed to be for patients, though. He got up and peeked around the corner to where the kitchen was, taking in the sight of shelves lined with many ointments and other strange medicinal items he knew nothing about.

"Here, sit back down on this stool," the midwife said to Ace as he returned to Lazue's side. "This is all we can do for now. The best thing you can do is stay with her and keep her company."

Ace sat beside Lazue's bed and the nurse and midwife exchanged saddened glances behind his back. He could feel their worried eyes upon him. At last, the nurse spoke up.

"Is she your lover?" the nurse inquired gently.

"Yeah," Ace answered quickly, before he could think too much about it. He didn't know why he'd told her a blatant lie, but something told him it was best to assume the role of someone else. To change his identity could only benefit Lazue. Besides, deep down he was interested in that whole concept of a relationship.

_Lover_. To him it seemed like such a foreign and exotically sensual word. Nothing that he was used to hearing applied to his person.

The midwife took a shaky breath before grabbing Ace's upper arm. He looked up into her slightly glazed eyes and felt his stomach drop. "If that's the case, then you should know that when we cleaned her wounds we…saw something unsettling. The blood that was coming out of the wound on her head was thicker than anything I've ever seen. I don't know what it means, as I've never seen such bleeding before even during childbirth, but I will tell you it does not look good for your love."

He couldn't help but leave his mouth open after it dropped in shock. "S-she," he sputtered, "is she going to _die_?"

"Most likely," the midwife answered quietly, casting her eyes down. "Her body is exhausted and the blood being in such a state could signify how dead the cells in her body have become. The injury should have been treated right away…"

"Isn't there anything you can do?" Ace's voice rose, frantic and scared.

"We've never seen anything like this," the nurse cried, moving her arms frantically. She had tears in her eyes and Lazue's blood on her hands. Ace turned away from the grisly sight and willed the woman to go wash it away. He didn't like to see just how mortal Lazue was by looking at her blood staining the nurse's skin.

After a while, the nurse and midwife left Ace to sit by his lonesome at Lazue's side. He couldn't help himself as he took her small bony fingers in his and kept a thumb attached to the pulse on her wrist, willing her to awaken.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N.:<strong> Thank you to everyone who reviewed! Sorry this wasn't up on Wednesday. Honestly, that's probably the worst day to update a story, haha. Right smack dab in the middle of the week.


	10. Chapter X

**...**

* * *

><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter X_

* * *

><p>The nurses left Ace alone with Lazue, only checking up on her status every once in a while. Ace didn't know if this was a normal practice or if they genuinely thought Lazue was a terminal case and couldn't be saved, but it unnerved and even angered him. Other members of the village came in and out of the home, allowing Ace to discover that it served as more of a clinic than anything else, and they often stared fixedly at the foreigners.<p>

Later in the day, when the sun was high in the sky and the light streamed through the windowpanes onto a quilted bedspread that covered Lazue, a man came in and pulled up a chair next to Ace. After a minute of perplexed staring, Ace finally remembered that he was the same middle-aged man that he'd run into when first stepping foot on the island.

"Is she going to be alright?" the man asked gently. He had placed his own chair farther down the bed near Lazue's feet so as not to appear too imposing.

Ace merely shrugged his shoulders, his face sullen. "I don't know." He wanted badly to say yes, Lazue would wake up and that would be that, but the women's foreboding words rung loudly in his ears. _She wouldn't make it._

The man beside him sighed and said, "The storm got you two, didn't it?"

"Yes," Ace mumbled. Usually he could always find something to talk about and he even thought of himself as something of a conversationalist, but today his spirit had oddly left him for dead. He tried to summon it back but couldn't find it in himself to entertain the man who waited for him to elaborate.

"That ship sitting out on the docks is in pretty bad shape. I have no idea how you managed to moor it without any sails. Was there anyone else aboard with you two? Did they perish in the storm?"

"No, just us," Ace replied hastily. He really wasn't in the mood for a chat.

"That's dangerous, taking a sloop only manned by two out on the Grand Line."

Ace kept his mouth shut, not wanting to tell the man that Lazue hadn't the faintest clue about seamanship. He knew that taking the sloop with only himself as a crew was unthinkable by any sane man and for a moment he berated his idiocy. Perhaps if he had forced that bartender Tool along as a second pair of able hands this wouldn't have happened?

No, he couldn't think about the 'what if's'. He had sworn to live his life without regrets, so he couldn't just go back in the past and imagine what could have been. He could only push forward from here.

"Can I…look at your face?" the man asked at length.

Ace turned to him, giving him an odd, irritated look. The man's face scrunched up as he studied Ace. "Why?" Ace enquired stiffly. He could feel himself growing tense. He certainly didn't want to be recognized as the 'Fire Fist' here, not with Lazue in no shape to make a run for it. He had left his hat behind on the sloop and put on a shirt just to keep eyes off of him. He didn't think he had left any more distinguishing features unchecked.

Unless…had the old man looked at what was onboard the ship?

The man nodded a bit to himself, then said, "I feel as though I've seen you before, but I know we've never met. It's so strange. What's your name?"

Ace froze up, unsure of what he should say. To lie or not to lie? His silence didn't go unnoticed by the man.

"Ah, how rude of me to ask for your name and then not give my own first. I'm Portgas D. Bleu, this small hamlet's mayor and fearless leader." He offered up a small smile, knowing that anything larger than that would not be appreciated given the circumstances.

If Ace was startled before, it couldn't compare with how he was feeling now. Jaw slackened, he stared wide-eyed at the man, who laughed rather roughly at Ace's discomfort.

"What, you don't think I look like much of a mayor?" His voice feigned a hurt tone.

"N-no, that's not it at all," Ace said, finding himself unable to think deeply enough to come up with something wittier to reply with.

He was in shock, his mind working overtime. Portgas? How could it be that this stranger and he shared the same surname? Not to mention the 'D' of which he'd yet to find an answer for. His eyes looked the man up and down; he had light, greying hair that seemed to have a tinge of strawberry blond mixed in and certainly looked to be quite strong if his muscular build was any indication.

But what Ace noticed the most was the sprinkling of freckles across the man's face and down his neck, growing both darker and blotchier until they disappeared under his clothes.

Those were disconcertingly familiar.

Ace badly wanted to ask about his mother, as that was her maiden name, but knew it might not be a good thing to reveal his connection to her so soon. After all, his father's blood ran just as strongly through his veins. And besides, perhaps Portgas really was a common name after all? Or perhaps this was merely some far-off cousin of an ancestor his mother had never known about?

"I'm Ace. And this is Lazue."

The man smiled and didn't press Ace for his full name, much to Ace's immediate relief.

"Well then, it's nice to meet you. I'm sure my wife Violet will take good care of your Lazue, don't you worry. She's the best when it comes to patching things up! She's the midwife around here."

Ace said nothing, recounting the midwife and the nurse's words for the thousandth time today.

"I don't know, she was hurt really bad in that storm," Ace said quietly, looking over Lazue's pale face. The nurse and midwife had wiped the blood from her, but a touch of pink remained firmly fixated on her skin in some places.

The man punched him lightly in the arm and Ace startled, nearly falling sideways off his chair. "Now, now, don't go saying that. If there's one thing I've learned, it's to never give up on people. A lot of times they surprise you."

Ace stared at this man, who smiled a crooked smile that was in no way filled with bad intentions. He had many laugh lines around his eyes and the sight of the freckles, older and more pronounced, yet so much like his own, made Ace turn away before he stared too intently.

Finally the question on Ace's mind gnawed away at him so much that he had to ask, "Are there many Portgas' on this island?"

The man known as Bleu furrowed his brow. "Well, there's me mum and myself. And of course my wife married into the family. Why do you ask?"

"Ah, no reason really. It's just a nice sounding name."

The man seemed to accept this. "Of course I had a sister too, once. But the sea stole her away from me."

Ace's breath caught and he wondered if it would seem too crass to ask for the name of the man's sister. But in the end his heart won out over his brain. "Her name was…?"

Bleu gave him a perplexed glance but replied quietly, "Rouge. My beautiful baby sister."

Ace focussed his eyes away from the man and at the wall, hoping the man couldn't see his pale face behind his dark head of hair. Soon Bleu pushed the chair back and got up, wandering into the kitchen and then leaving through the front door without another word.

* * *

><p>Violet, the midwife, came to check on Lazue more frequently after her husband left and told Ace there was a slight decline in the girl's heartbeat. He relearned that the nurse's name was Mistral, and that she had come to the island over two decades ago on a marine vessel.<p>

He also learned from the woman that the island loathed marines. He didn't question why, but he ascertained that there was something in the history of the people that told him it wasn't just one or two people who felt that way. Two men had been in the clinic when Mistral had casually mentioned her dislike for the marines and Ace had noticed the men's face go black with barely controlled rage.

The third important thing he started noticing was the apparent lack of women on the island. It was mostly men who came into the clinic, some to get herbs that were grown in the backyard, others to get medicine, and some to get an accidental fishing wound patched up. He also noticed the men who went through the clinic weren't the cheery sort. Apart from Bleu who visited earlier, there wasn't a single laugh or smile shared by any. He did, however, receive many curious stares.

There wasn't anyone his age and from what he could see outside the clinic through the window by Lazue's bed there weren't any children playing in the streets, which he thought to be uncharacteristic of a village like this. Perhaps they played around the mountain farther up the island? He figured that if he were a child living here he'd want to be away from all those frowning, sullen faces.

The only time he left Lazue's side during the day was when the nurse offered him something to eat. He was embarrassed to eat like a ravenous wolf but his enthusiasm only made Mistral smile and serve him more. He hadn't the heart to tell her that her hospitality wasn't going to earn her any coins. Though he knew Lazue had brought along a few belis, he also knew the payoff from her days as a barkeep didn't amount to much at all.

Night came and Lazue still hadn't woken up. Ace was beginning to feel tired and stiff from sitting next to the bed. Violet and Mistral had left for some reason or another and he took the time he had alone in the clinic to explore. He found a washroom and stared at himself in the mirror. No, he certainly didn't look like he had any money, so he hoped that those two kind women knew better than to bother to ask for any.

He also rubbed at his freckles, thinking about his mother, whose face had been described to him countless times. If the man known as Bleu really was his mother's blood related brother then the man would be his uncle. The title was foreign in his mind and he repeated it aloud to himself, but it only made him scowl. No, Ace didn't have things like uncles and aunts. And the only father he'd ever acknowledge was Whitebeard himself.

Still, he wanted to know about his mother so badly that it physically hurt an area of his chest. It was always something he'd been curious about, ever since he'd realized that other children had a special person they called their 'mother'. But he didn't want to ask Bleu about her because he'd surely ask him why he'd want to know such things. So he decided to keep his mouth shut. Perhaps it was better this way, to not know anything. Ignorance could be unfulfilling, yet also blissful in the long run.

Ace sat back down in the chair next to Lazue's bed and, before he could think stop himself, he gave in to the familiar drifting sensation of one of his sleep attacks. As he fell into unconsciousness he was dimly aware that he had grabbed Lazue's hand in his own, his fingers brushing against her pulse, just in case.

* * *

><p>When Ace next woke, Violet had returned with a newspaper and the sun outside the window seemed to have renewed itself. He watched as she set it down beside him, guessing that he'd slept through the night and well into the next day.<p>

"In case you wanted to read about what's happening out there," she said. "There's only one newspaper that comes for the island and we usually pass it around for a week until another paper arrives on those snazzy carrier seabirds. It just arrived now and the mayor said it'd be proper to let the guests read the paper first." She giggled softly to herself, "Try not to let the mayor's kindness fool you though, because he'll probably ask you to help him out in some way or another. We don't have many able-bodied youngsters on this island as you may have noticed."

Labouring, Ace could handle. He took the newspaper that was offered and skimmed the headlines. It was something about the marines looking for new chefs and something else about a new medicinal discovery, things that didn't really interest him, but he had nothing better to do.

He thanked Violet politely and she went into the kitchen. He could hear her rattling pans and other things but didn't know if the woman was preparing food or more medicine. His bottomless stomach hoped it was the former and hoped that she might offer to feed him. He still had the provisions on the ship, but he didn't really want to leave the clinic. Not with Lazue like she was. Just in case she…

He shook his head firmly. No, he would not allow himself to think like that.

With a heavy sigh Ace forced himself to look out the window and count the birds that floated by overhead in the soft morning sun. Anything to keep his anxious mind at bay. He supposed during the night Lazue hadn't moved much from when he'd last seen her insentient form. Her breathing was regular and he made himself believe that each breath she was taking was less flaccid than the last.

A pleasant aroma wafted into the next room just as Ace got bored enough to open the supposedly sacred newspaper beyond the headlines on the front page. He skimmed the articles and got about halfway through when he turned to the scraps of paper that were added into the newspaper like flyers. The Government's wanted posters. They sent them out every once in a while when there was a change in the bounty of a notable criminal.

Much to Ace's relief, Lazue's picture wasn't among those papers. He, however, wasn't that lucky. His bounty had gone up by a smidgeon for some reason he couldn't fathom and, before Violet could come back, he crumpled the paper into a ball within his palm.

Then, ever so carefully, he let his palm burn. The smoke that was produced stunk a little but the windows were open in the room and the air would filter the smoke out before too long.

He was glad the paper had been given to him first rather than passed around the island. He could've been easily recognized if his freckles were compared to the picture of the 'Fire Fist'. It seemed his normal, shabby luck was going out of style for now.

When the paper in his palm had become mostly indistinguishable, Ace went over to the washroom and dumped the ashen crumbs in the toilet, flushing the wanted poster away, never to be seen again. Satisfied with his handiwork, he returned to Lazue's side.

Violet came out with a tray of food for Ace and he ate, though he didn't have his usual vigour. Violet checked Lazue's vitals carefully but it seemed, at least to Ace, that the woman was paying more attention to him rather than Lazue. It was unnerving. Plus, he wanted Lazue to get the attention she needed. He was fine and didn't need to be so closely monitored. At last, Ace couldn't stand the silence that came along with those wandering eyes of Violet's.

"You say you're a midwife yet I don't see many women on this island, much less children."

Violet's face grew dark and she looked down at her shoes. Ace immediately regretted that he'd brought up the subject and wished he could've just bitten off his tongue. He didn't want anyone to be annoyed with him.

"That's because a long time ago the marines came and killed all of the women here if they even suspected that they might be pregnant. Not just any wife of a man, but any girl of age to bear children. That's why you see so many morose men out there. They also culled the children under the age of five, and there were not many to begin with, and all were very young."

Ace grimaced as his heart dropped out of his chest. He had heard that story from many people before even though the marines had tried desperately to cover up their actions some twenty odd years ago. He just…had never imagined that one single island could be hit so badly.

He knew now, without a doubt, that his mother had been raised here.

"There was supposed to be lots of children here on Matanza Island, you know. A long time ago, that was the shared ambition of everyone here: to raise a family. Now this island is just a fishing port that sells their wares to the next island over." Violet sighed and replaced the bandage around Lazue's head. When she finished, she looked at Ace with a new conviction in her eyes.

Ace swallowed apprehensively under her inquisitive gaze but didn't dare look away. Finally, Violet blurted out, "How is it that you survived, Ace?"

He made an unintelligible grunt of surprise. He hadn't introduced himself to her yet, despite having had numerous opportunities. Unless Bleu told her, she shouldn't have known his name…

"I know who you are, Gol D. Ace."

"That's not my name," Ace snapped before he could help himself. "It's Portgas. It's _Portgas _D. Ace."

Violet was taken aback by this and it showed in the way her eyes widened and her hands trembled. She gulped down her surprise as best she could and prayed that no one would come into the clinic to disturb her and Ace until she'd told him everything that she knew.

"So that's how it is. You took your mother's name. Why?"

Ace turned away as a dusting of pink came over his cheeks. "I owe her everything. She made sure I lived."

"She certainly did," Violet said softly. "She risked everything to get to Baterilla because she was convinced it would be the only safe place to give birth to you after her connection to this island was discovered in an intercepted letter. She thought it was the only place out of reach of the World Government. And it was, for a time…"

"How do you know I'm her child? And how do you know where she gave birth to me?"

Violet smiled, a tiny genuine smile that seemed almost motherly in warmth. "You two share the same facial expressions, especially when you're worried. I noticed it first when you brought Lazue in here. As for the place of your birth…" Violet paused, a far-away look in her eyes. Her whole body was trembling now; Ace could see the vibrations clearly.

"Twenty years ago I was the one who helped deliver you – the midwife. Rouge was always a friend to everyone but she preferred a close knit group of people and valued trust. So, since I was her best friend since childhood, it was only natural that she'd put a lot of trust in me over the years."

A shiver ran across Ace's skin. This was more information about his mother than he'd ever obtained in one shot. Indeed, Rouge was like a phantom – no one seemed to know of her existence. The only stories and descriptions he'd had of her had come from his adoptive grandfather, Garp, and those had been few and far between.

And then…to have met someone who was _there_ when he was born…Ace nearly started shivering himself. But not out of fear or anger, rather a quiet excitement that maybe, _maybe_ he might finally learn something worth knowing about his mother.

"What…what was she really like? As a person?" Ace asked softly. That was one thing he hadn't been able to get out of his grandfather. Every time he brought her up it would stir up memories of Ace's father and he never got anything out of the old man that was unbiased.

Violet knew the boy would ask that question; it was natural. In fact, before Rouge passed she'd even told Violet that if the opportunity would ever arise she should tell her son anything he wanted to know. Rouge had been thoughtful like that, having had ample time to prepare for her own death and to ensure Ace's life. "Rouge was someone who cared deeply for others but sometimes at the expense of her own health. Most people either admired her for this or thought she was quite foolish. I admired her though – almost everyone in the village did. When Rouge left…"

Shaking her head to clear herself of the painful memories Violet left that sentence unfinished.

"You have to understand, Ace, nobody thought you would live long. There was a third person with us when you were born and they took you from Rouge's lifeless hands. It was one of your father's most trusted men, and yet at the same time his most hated enemy. I didn't know where he took you, but he swore to me that Roger had made some sort of agreement to have you adopted into a family."

Ace stayed quiet. He knew the story of how Roger convinced Garp to take him in and raise him. Garp himself had told him that much. From that point to the present, he knew about. But he wanted to know about the past more than anything.

"I didn't know really at the time who that person was. When I found out he was a marine, I knew that I'd done a _horrible_ thing by allowing him to take you away. I figured that he had taken you to be killed for the ambitions of the World Government." She shook her head, her eyelids droopy with tears. "To think, you'd show up here? _Alive_? Your family has always had strange luck. But perhaps Rouge had the strangest luck of all. Meeting and falling in love with the man who'd eventually become the Pirate King. Lucky or grossly unlucky?"

With a grimace Ace turned his face towards the wall, angled out of sight of Violet's intense eyes. "Definitely unlucky," Ace said gently. "Because I was born to continue _his _line."

He could hear Violet's faint gasp behind him but he didn't feel any sort of regret for uttering those words because it was something he truly believed. He had known about the suffering others had endured because of his birth. The people of the island would scorn him if they knew he was the cause for their misfortunes. He heard with his own ears how people all over the world cursed his survival and wished he'd been killed the day he was conceived. He was a demon created by a demon and placed inside an unfortunate fair maiden, nothing else.

"You…question your existence?"

Ace didn't reply. There wasn't any need to. The answer was clear on his face and in his heart.

Violet watched the boy take the girl's hand in his own, the sight familiar and yet foreign to her. She knew she'd seen something like this before, this empathy for others at the cost of one's own life. Then it hit her. "You and Rouge…share the same problem. You two both live and lived for other people. _Through_ other people. She always believed other lives were more important than her own."

Thoughts of his little brother, his old crew, the Spade pirates, the family Whitebeard allowed him to join, and other people he truly cared for that he had met on his journeys filled his mind. It was true, what Violet said. He knew he'd sacrifice his life for someone like his brother in a heartbeat. That was the kind of person he was.

And, apparently, Rouge had been the same way.

He sat silently, brooding over the information he'd received while Violet got up and went into the kitchen, unsure of what she should say to Ace. She had thought, should Ace survive, that he would share the same character traits as his father. She hadn't expected to see the kind, caring and selfless Rouge so strongly represented.

Ace, meanwhile, jumped in his chair as Lazue's fingers feebly clutched his hand. He careened forward, just as Lazue's eyes started to open, blinking slowly in the light of a sun not seen for days.

She was awake.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N.: <strong>Alright! Didn't miss the update this week! Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, I value every word said. Some of you are so insightful with your comments, they're truly a joy to read.


	11. Chapter XI

**...**

* * *

><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter XI_

* * *

><p>At first, it seemed to Ace that Lazue wasn't sure of who he was, as she began to thrash against the grip he had on her hand. But then, after chanting her name numerous times, she came out of the trance she had fallen into.<p>

"Lazue, it's me. Ace. Remember? Ace!"

Lazue's body froze as she stared at him, her eyes bloodshot though she hadn't shed a single tear. Ace shivered under her gaze. It was like looking into the eyes of a wounded beast preparing to die.

The threatened, unconnected look she gave Ace slowly faded away. Eventually, she collapsed back onto the bed, the strength draining from her body.

Violet, hearing Ace's frantic and snappy phrases, came rushing in only to see that, against all the laws of the medical world, Lazue was alive. She hurried back to the kitchen, intending to bring Lazue something packed with energy that would hopefully guarantee her survival.

Ace didn't notice Violet scurrying away, instead searching Lazue's face, hoping that by now she'd regained an idea of who he was. He didn't know how hard Lazue had hit the guardrail, or what had happened to her that had caused the gash on her head, and he was worried she'd gotten amnesia. He'd never known anyone who had it, but from what he had heard it was terrifying since the person forgot everything they'd once known, including names and faces.

"Lazue?" he questioned cautiously. If she could respond to her name, then maybe not all was lost.

"You're awake."

Astonished, all Ace could think about was how _he_ should be the one making that statement, not her. "Y-yeah, I woke up I saw you hanging from the ship, nearly _dead_! You've been out for almost two days! They told me you were going to die!"

He couldn't keep his emotions from spilling over and he hoped that his loud voice hadn't given her a shock. She had been in the silent bliss of unconsciousness for a long time.

Remarkably, Lazue wasn't too fazed by Ace's shouting, though she did flinch. She didn't know where she was, but she was in a warm bed and Ace was there with her, so that seemed to be enough of a comfort. Her hand was hot, but by angling her head she could see that the reason for that was Ace's body temperature rising.

She squeezed his fingers, trying to signal to him that he was beginning to steam. The pirate didn't catch the meaning of Lazue's finger's gripping his own, but the action brought him out of his sudden shock and back into control. Lazue felt her hand cool down as a result. It would be bad for both of them if Ace had accidentally burned her.

"Disaster really has a habit of following me, doesn't it?" Lazue whispered, her voice scratchy and weak. It hurt her throat to talk and she realized she was parched beyond all possible belief. The salt water that made up the ocean had soaked into all the pores in her skin.

"No, it's not you disaster is following," Ace replied softly, moving his head in towards Lazue. He could hardly hear her weak voice and, at this point, he needed to hear everything she said to ease his worry. "It's me. Ever since the moment I was born. Hell, even _before_ I was born I was bad luck."

She reached a hand up to touch lightly at his freckled cheek, yet was so fatigued that she could merely brush his skin before letting the hand drop to the bed once more. Ace re-grasped it and held her hand close, afraid that this time for sure he was going to lose her.

He nearly snarled at Violet who came up beside him and pushed him aside carelessly. Then he saw that she held a glass of water in her hands and was trying to sit Lazue up so she could drink from it. He rushed to assist her, and together they were sure some of the liquid eventually made it down Lazue's throat.

Lazue sputtered and coughed, but otherwise she was regaining colour in her cheeks. She was alive. That was all that mattered to Ace. He would not lose someone to his stupidity.

He sat on the bed next to her, keeping her propped up against his chest while Violet changed her head bandages, then looked for the first time at the battered skin on her back upon lifting the girl's shirt up. Ace was able to crane his neck enough to peer over Lazue's shoulder, allowing him to glimpse a small portion of the damage, and the sight made his stomach swim. He prided himself on normally having a strong stomach, but there was something about seeing someone he cared for in so much pain that made him want to retch. He figured it didn't help that he believed himself to be at fault. He held the impulse to gag in, though he couldn't keep his eyes away for long from what was exposed of her back.

It wasn't a wound that suited the innocent.

"I have to get some ointment to rub on that. It must be painful, right Lazue?"

Lazue turned her face into the crook of Ace's neck and mumbled something that was incoherent to all ears. Violet hadn't really been looking for an answer. She dove into the kitchen and began mixing and mashing ingredients that would provide a soothing effect on her marred skin.

"Tell me what happened," Lazue whispered hoarsely, her breath hot in Ace's ear. He obliged, giving her a quick recount of the time they spent aboard the sloop. Much to Ace's relief, Lazue made comments every once in a while to indicate that she did remember what happened before they'd entered that terrible storm. This put Ace at ease, and he chatted restlessly to her about everything he'd learned about the island they'd stumbled across. He told her everyone's names, the fact that there was a lack of ladies on the island, and that it was a fishing-oriented village. He did, however, neglect to mention anything concerning his surname. He didn't want to bother her with it.

By the time Violet came back with a bowl of paste a smile, though faint, was upon Lazue's face.

"Rub this on her back. It should alleviate the sting and help nourish the skin." Violet handed him a bowl of white viscous liquid. He stared at it with little comprehension, numbly aware of Lazue moving beside him. When next he turned to see her she'd been stripped of all clothing covering her top half and he felt his face redden, even though Lazue weakly wrapped a single arm around her stomach to cover her breasts.

Seeing this gesture made Ace lunge for her other arm, pulling it back. At first he was met with a protest in the form of a whimper and a bit of physical resistance. Then Lazue realized what he was trying to prevent her from doing and relaxed in his grip. Embarrassment painted her face rouge.

If Violet noticed anything peculiar about this silent exchange she didn't mention it. Instead she simply encouraged Lazue to lie on her belly and relax. Then Violet darted back into the kitchen, claiming to have left medicinal ingredients on the stove.

Ace pretended not to notice the somewhat devious expression that was exposed in the fine wrinkles under Violet's eyes.

He went to work, hoping that by doing something it would return his face to its normal colouration. Upon dipping his fingers into Violet's white paste he grimaced; it felt not unlike slimy raw meat, no, raw _fish,_ with a touch of something stiff within its contents. Closer examination revealed that there were leaves of some sort hidden in the liquid.

Despite being appalled by the mixture, he gently applied it bit by bit to Lazue's back. She made little noises at the temperature of the liquid, which was warm or perhaps too hot, he couldn't tell. Not with his Devil Fruit abilities.

"Is this okay?"

A shuddering sigh passed through Lazue's parted lips. "It's hot."

At this Ace tried his best to focus on the heat of the cream, his internal fire calling out to that heat and sucking it out of the inanimate liquid as best he could. When Lazue made a sound of approval he slowly began to spread the ointment across her back, ever so gently so as not to hurt her. She wasn't making any sounds to indicate anything, so he could only hope to be doing a satisfactory job of it.

He knew Violet should have been the one doing this, since she obviously had some experience. But he knew the reason she wouldn't offer to take his place was because of something he'd stupidly told her when they'd first met.

Apparently she had believed his words about the relationship between them as she was now taking it upon herself to make sure both got to spend some quality time alone together.

"Ace," Lazue suddenly whispered frantically, breaking his concentration.

"What is it?"

She groaned, annoyed with how loud he was being. The man had no sense for secrecy. "Come closer." He continued rubbing at her back, confused as to what she meant. "_Lean in_. I need to tell you something."

Her voice was so painfully faint that he completely leaned over her back in order to hear anything coming out of her mouth. Her face was partially obscured by her messy shock of hair, which hadn't been washed since she'd been drenched in rain and seawater days ago.

"What is it? Am I being too rough?" Ace asked softly, fearing that she'd tell him that he was doing a bloody awful job at playing nurse. He really didn't want to cause her any more discomfort. Not after all the suffering she'd already endured on his behalf.

"No, no," she muttered, "It's just…something about my Devil Fruit."

Ace leaned in even closer, his interest piqued to record highs. His nose brushed her hair and his breath was hot, making her skin even more feverish than it already was. "Tell me."

"When I woke up…my head was thumping. It was like…you know when sometimes you hurt yourself and that injury feels like it has a pulse?" Ace grunted to urge her on, though he didn't really know where she was going with this. "It kind of felt like that, except there was two… sort of… miniature pulsations. I don't know how else to word it; it's hard to explain."

The tone of her voice told Ace she was getting frustrated with her lack of appropriate words. "No, no, keep trying," Ace whispered. He stole a glance towards the kitchen, hoping that Violet wouldn't be found peeking around the corner watching them. As much as he trusted the woman, as she had been a friend of his mother's, he didn't really know how far her understanding would extend to if she found out about Lazue's acquired abilities.

Lazue was silent for a minute and Ace massaged her back with more pressure than before, in suspense over whether or not she had lost consciousness. At last her scratchy voice drifted to his eager ears.

"I think I can hear other people's heartbeats."

As Ace exhaled, flames tickled his nostrils and he quickly buried his face in Lazue's hair to smother the smoke. She didn't protest to this action, either too weak to expend the extra effort or too caught up in her own thoughts to even notice Ace's behaviour.

"People's heartbeats?"

Lazue yawned ferociously and Ace reared back, thinking this to be some sort of sign she was trying to give him. But Lazue was just tired and Ace was just overly anxious.

"Two of them. One of them belongs to that woman over there, because I can still hear it, except its fainter now. The other one–"

"That would be mine, right?"

Lazue gulped nervously, shifting her weight around. A sharp pain shot up her back. Although the ointment Ace had spread over her had soothed the skin an ache still remained and every time she so much as twitched she felt as though she was back on the sloop with the main mast battering her.

"No, it was someone passing by. It's like how you can hear footsteps – loud when the person is close and soft when they're walking away from you." She swallowed thickly again, her dry throat seizing up and making her gasp into the pillow under her head. "I can't hear _anything_ from you."

"Why?" Ace questioned after losing his voice for a few minutes. "I have a heart. _Every_ living thing has a bloody heart."

"You tell me why I can't hear you," she snapped, the dam that had contained her fear and anxiety suddenly collapsing from the pressure. "You know almost everything else about these sick Devil Fruit powers, _so_ _you tell me what the hell is wrong_."

Ace froze up, deathly quiet for a long time.

"…I don't know."

* * *

><p>Lazue soon lost consciousness after their conversation turned sour and Ace found himself outside the clinic after Violet had shooed him out like a disobedient dog. She had claimed that Lazue's vitals had vastly improved and that she no longer ran any risk for a sudden death. According to Violet, the girl was making leaps and bounds in her recovery. Ace was still apprehensive, but Violet had asked that he help out her husband in the village in order to repay her.<p>

He had found over the years that repayment by hard labour was better than having to pay with monetary things that he _didn't _have but after the episode with Lazue he was much more hesitant. He didn't want to leave her alone, even though Violet was there with her. Still, his honour won out and he set off through the main street of the village in search of Bleu.

Violet had said that he would find Bleu down by the docks, working on tying fishing nets, something he apparently did a lot of. On his way down to the water's edge, Ace passed a fair few men carrying up an assortment of things, many relating to the economy of the small fishing hamlet in which they lived. Everything seemed to revolve around fishing, and Ace didn't doubt that the only way the fishermen carved out a living was through trade with neighbouring islands.

He found it peculiar, though not distressing, how the faces of the men he passed seemed to light up upon seeing him. He wondered just what the mayor had told the people of the village about him. One man approached him just as he reached the sandy shores of the beach.

"How is your wife?" the man asked, his wrinkled face showing deep concern.

Ace nearly had a conniption that could've included spouting flames from his gaping mouth. "A-ah, um, she's not my wife but she's doing fine, thanks."

The man, who seemed to be nearing his fifties smiled broadly, oblivious to Ace's near meltdown. "Is that so? Not _yet_ your wife you say? Well, take care of her all the same. Everyone's been wondering how she's been doing, but Violet's a tight-lipped lady when it comes to speaking with the men. With women, she's a blabbermouth, though."

The fisherman left Ace staring after him, wondering if the older man had a hearing problem. He was really beginning to fear the rate at which rumour could spread in a hamlet that clearly had no more than fifty occupants. _Not yet?_ That man could cause a stir in gossip if he twisted his story any further. He could see it now; the men would all be gathered in the fish cleaning shacks, talking about a future wedding while gutting their catches for the day.

Ace groaned at the mental imaging his mind forced upon him. A part of him wanted to turn around and run back up to the makeshift clinic to explain to Lazue that they were under another identity while another part of him reasoned that even if he was to do that, perhaps she already knew?

At any rate, he just hoped Lazue didn't attempt to kick his ass for his lying _or_ proclaim to the entire village that there was nothing romantic going on between them. He could practically feel the awkwardness that would come of such a silly scandal.

Not that he should care, being a pirate and all. Still, it would be a gaping wound to his pride, which was sinking low enough presently with everything that had happened since the moment he had set foot in Lazue's tavern. He shook his head firmly; he would have no regrets for his previous actions. He wouldn't allow himself to think about the past like that.

With steady determination returning to him, he set off down the docks, spotting a greying man among greying men that fit Bleu's rather hairy physical body. He approached and saw that, just as Violet had informed him earlier, the man was tying netting together. He also noticed, with growing dread, all the men working down by the water were shirtless, making his covered torso stand out like a sore thumb.

He couldn't exactly take off his shirt and expose his mark to them. Surely one of them would recognize the tattoo and create a commotion. While he knew they wouldn't dare attack him or anger him in any way, he also knew they would avoid him like a plague-carrying rodent. He didn't really want that to happen yet, not without any means of escaping the island should things turn unbearable.

"Hey, Bleu," Ace called out as soon as he was within range. Bleu's head shot up from his intense knot tying work and he inclined his head in greeting.

"The cavalry chase you down here?" Bleu asked jokingly. He grinned and Ace found himself matching the man's smile, only with slightly less intensity. The man's genuine enthusiasm was contagious. "Well, now that we have an extra pair of hands perhaps we can get some real work done here, eh gentlemen?"

Ace felt a bit of unease as the men around him all stopped in their work and grinned at him wittingly. He had a feeling he was going to be in for one hell of a day.

* * *

><p>With much difficulty, Lazue managed to drag herself upright in bed and peer around at her surroundings. She could hear Violet in the kitchen area, whisking things together. She could also <em>feel<em> Violet's presence, as the thumping in her head was prevalent.

She groaned and held her temple, willing the extra beating to go away. But still, it persisted. If anything it was getting louder. A quick glance upwards showed her that Violet had come to sit next to her on the bed.

"You seem a bit livelier," she commented, placing a hand over the girl's chest where her heart resided. She realized Violet was monitoring her heartbeat in an unobtrusive way. "Is your head giving you trouble? The gash should have sealed by now and the stitches might come out tomorrow at the earliest."

"You could say that my head gives me trouble," muttered Lazue, angry that she seemed to have an everlasting headache. Only, problem was, it wasn't really a headache. It was more of a dull thumping that didn't really pain her more than her other wounds, only annoyed her to the point where she couldn't concentrate fully on her surroundings. She didn't exactly _see_ Violet leave the bed and come back.

She felt it.

She _felt_ Violet leave and come back. That was perhaps the most distracting part of this oddity. Knowing how close and far people were from her position at all times.

"Here, take a drink," Violet offered. Lazue took the mug and stared at its contents. It looked like a pinkish liquid and, rather than question it, Lazue just drank. It felt slimy going down her throat but didn't taste unpleasant. It reminded her of berry juice with a bizarre texture. "That's the extract of a plant that grows on the ocean floor around here called Sea Spectrum. The fishermen often haul bushels of them up when they use sinking nets that dredge everything on the bottom of the ocean."

"What does it do?" Lazue asked, moving about a little to see if there were any immediate effects to her tired limbs.

"That's a question you should save for this village's elder, Jaunis. She'll tell you whatever you need to know. I can tell you though, it's great for the skin, and your skin is in need of healing."

Lazue was perplexed by this, but didn't question further as Violet started talking again. "Ace is down by the docks, helping out the fishermen. While he's doing that, you should pay a visit to Jaunis. You're fit enough now to walk, I reckon."

At this, Lazue pulled back the covers and stepped onto the hardwood flooring. She stood up, finding that it was a lot easier than she thought. The skin on her back still made her wince and grimace, but her legs weren't in any pain. She took a few tentative steps around the side of the bed and Violet trailed her, just in case she toppled over.

"You may want to take a shower before you go, though," Violet suggested, showing her where the bathroom was. Lazue thanked her, then went about her business in the bathroom. When she was finished she felt refreshed and less stiff. The white paste that Ace had put on her had long since dried and had flaked off in the shower. But the warm water had felt better than any ointment could have.

She dried herself off and noticed that Violet had left a pale blue sundress next to her old clothes. A hastily scribbled note read that Violet thought the dress would irritate her damaged back less than her other clothes. Lazue immediately picked up the dress and threw it over her head. Much to her surprise, the dress came down past her rather knobby knees and the bodice fit snugly, but not so much as to grip her back painfully. It fit even though Violet herself was a plumper woman than she. Perhaps it was an old dress that didn't fit the woman anymore? Or maybe there was someone else in the village willing to share with the stranger that washed up on the island?

Lazue didn't care because the fresh cloth felt so nice against her skin.

She walked out into the empty clinic, clutching the note in her hands. For a second she just stood there inanely before it came to her that the throbbing that she'd grown accustomed to had ceased completely.

There was no one around. Violet had vanished.

She re-read the note in her hands for anything she might have missed, then flipped it over and found more writing on the backside.

_Jaunis lives straight down the main street towards the mountains. Her house is the one with many red flowers surrounding it. You'll know it when you see it, and don't be afraid of it._

_Violet._

Lazue carefully folded the strange note and pressed it into her palm, since there wasn't a single pocket on the dress. Then she left the clinic, wondering if she should try to find Ace or go see elder Jaunis. In the end, her curiosity for the elder's supposedly wise words made her turn her face towards the mountain peaks she could see in the distance.

Her mind was made up; she would go to see the village elder.


	12. Chapter XII

**...**

* * *

><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter XII_

* * *

><p>The street was empty save for the occasional flock of little birds picking at tiny pebbles and a cat that wandered out in front of her path, barely giving her a sideways glance. Lazue could hear noise coming from the docks, but she had made up her mind that Ace could wait for now. Lazue wished to be left to her own devices, to make her own damn decisions about her life. She wanted to savour this freedom from Ace a little longer.<p>

Besides, she wanted to know why she was feeling a pull towards the base of those mountains, and why Violet had left her side so soon with only a note to give her direction. For this she didn't want to consult Ace. He probably wouldn't want her moving around so soon after awakening. He would be a thorn in her side, something she did not need right now.

A part of her was still resentful towards him for everything that had happened to her. Still, she could feel that dislike for him shrinking, especially since he'd had no malicious intent in anything he did. This frustrated her to no end, as she felt she should really be trying to kill him in his sleep rather than befriend him.

Then again, who was she kidding? She could _never_ intentionally murder someone. She sighed in defeat, slapping a hand against her forehead for thinking such crass things.

She continued to walk slowly up the road, minding the dull throb in her spine, and passing the occasional house made from the trees that grew on the island. The land was closing in around her and soon she found that the wide street had dwindled into a winding path, leading her towards the mountains in the distance. If she stretched out her arms she could touch tree leaves on both sides of her. All around she could hear birds chirping, but much to her surprise she couldn't feel any sort of heartbeats that had connected her to their presences before. It was strange but she was glad to be back to normal. The question was whether it would last.

The terrain changed once again. The tree line was receding and in its place large bushes covered with flowers in many brilliant shades of red took precedence. Lazue figured she must be getting close to the house Violet had specified in her note. She continued walking, stopping only to sniff at the red flowers whose scent she couldn't help but admire. It was a sweet aroma that beckoned to passers-by and for a moment or two Lazue was caught up in those bushels, her face pressed into the petals of a dozen or more flowers.

"You must be the visitor Violet told me about."

Lazue tore herself away from the flowers and spun around to face a rather short woman who hunched over a cane made of knobbed wood, entwined with those same red flowers she'd become so enamoured of.

"Lazue, isn't it?"

"Y-yes," the girl replied shakily, wondering if this was the woman who lived on the mountainside. As if knowing her thoughts, the elderly woman offered a quirky smile.

"I'm one of the most ancient pieces of this village," the elder said. Lazue could detect a slight hint of humour, and knew she must be attempting to joke with her. "I'm Jaunis. Portgas D. Jaunis."

_Portgas_. The name rung through her head continuously, bouncing off a dozen other things that the name was tied to. _Ace_. His name.

The woman was laughing and Lazue found that her mouth was open, spewing her haphazard thoughts for the elder to hear. She quickly clamped it shut, face reddened.

"Yes, I've been told by Violet that a miracle had happened and I am indeed some sort of grandmother with an accomplished pirate for a grandson. The boy you are travelling with…he must have been born under one hell of a star!"

Lazue thought about Ace's fits of sleep, the odd tendency he had to run leaping head first into trouble, and how it had been entirely his fault that she became a wanted criminal. Yes, he'd certainly been born under a whacko star.

"Questions: you have them for me, am I right?"

Lazue ignored the backwards way of asking and simply inclined her head slightly to agree. Since the revelation of Ace having relatives she had more questions than ever before.

"Then come inside my home, won't you?" Jaunis raised a finger and threw it in a seemingly random direction. Lazue's eyes followed that finger but all she could make out was an exceedingly large cluster of rosy flowers. That bush, if it could even be called a bush, was taller and wider than the trees that grew in an arc around it.

Lazue was about to ask what it was that she was pointing at, but stopped herself when the flowers all around them started to move, as if being rustled by a fierce wind. The petals danced and the leaves spiralled, revealing a home overgrown by rampant flora.

The old woman laughed heartily at Lazue's bewildered expression and began to push through the mound of flowers guarding her home, beckoning the girl to follow her. Lazue swallowed her surprise as best she could and tore through the ensnarement of flower bushes, trying to keep close to the woman in front of her who looked to be having no problems at all. In fact, it was almost as if the flowers were moving aside for her.

They certainly were making it difficult for Lazue. The stems of the flowers were wrapping around her person, around legs, arms, waist and even her neck. They were pulling her back as she struggled to move forward.

"Ah, here we are! Come in, come in!" The elderly woman held open a door for Lazue, one that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. "Hurry now!"

With one final grunt Lazue threw herself through the open door, the flower stems dropping away from her body to avoid being ripped apart. She landed stomach down on a relatively soft rug and heard a door slam shut behind her.

"Sorry about my dears; they don't like guests, no matter who they are!"

Lazue rolled over onto her back, wincing as a fresh spurt of pain rippled up and down her spine. "What was wrong with those flowers?" she moaned, more to herself than Jaunis.

The elder snorted, a most vile sound that could be compared to a volcano burping. "Well, it takes a special touch to raise those Hexarouge Jatropha. They're a native breed on this island – you can only find them in two places in the entire world! They say the flowers come to be like the children of the gardener and, well, they're very protective as you can see."

Lazue said nothing, panting and trying to catch her breath. She didn't know if it was because she genuinely thought the flowers were going to strangle her or if she was out of breath because of her weakened, injured body.

When she finally absorbed enough oxygen to stop feeling light-headed, Lazue found that the woman was still talking about her flowers.

"–And did you know that ingesting just three of the plant's seeds could be fatal? We learned that the hard way. But I still like eating the seeds every once in a while. If you roast them the toxic compounds generally neutralize quite nicely."

"Um, your name? I mean, you said it was Portgas? Are you _really_–?"

"Yep," Jaunis answered, anticipating this question.

"Does Ace…know? That you're related in some way?"

"No…unless Violet spilled the beans, in which case he now knows!" She let loose a loud guffaw that seemed to shake the very rafters of her wooden home. Lazue gulped, hoping that the roof would hold up for the duration of her visit. "I would imagine he knows, Violet is a blabbermouth. Always has been. That girl could never keep a secret. Whether the boy believes it is an entirely different story. I almost don't."

Lazue opened her mouth to ask after Violet, but before she could utter a syllable the old woman had turned away from her and was starting towards the tiny kitchen.

"Now what say you and I have a bite to eat, yes?"

In response to this Lazue's stomach growled loudly, complaining about the lack of food she'd had over the past few days. Picking herself up, Lazue tromped over to the little four-person table and slumped into one of the chairs, hunching forward. All of a sudden she was tired again. She figured it could possibly be a side effect of the medicine she'd been given over the days. She had a feeling Violet had somehow given things to her when she was unconscious.

While Jaunis cooked up an insanely large portion of food for the two of them, she continued talking. It was as if the woman hadn't had a visitor in decades. Maybe that was why Violet had sent her up here so soon. Mostly she chatted about her flowers and the many adverse effects the bugs had on them but when she finally changed topics Lazue found herself hanging on every word.

"–So Violet was telling me she gave you a plant that grew on the bottom of the ocean, right?"

"Yes!" Lazue hurried to jump in lest she not have any say in the conversation at all. "She said it was called Sea Spectrum, I think."

"Yep, that's what they call it, 'cause it comes in lots of different colours. That plant lives at the bottom of the sea for about two hundred years before it starts to flower. And you can only make an extract out of the plants that have flowers on them because those ones are mature."

"She told me that you'd be the one to tell me what the plant does."

The old woman twirled around, doing a dramatic sweep with a ladle in one hand and a salt shaker in the other. "It _slightly_ nullifies a Devil Fruit user's abilities." Lazue's mouth hung open at this. "Oh, and it gives you beautiful glossy skin too, if you eat enough of it."

"It stops Devil Fruit abilities?"

"_Temporarily_, yes. A person's powers will come back in about twenty-four hours, as the body digests and rids itself of the extract. If a Devil Fruit user eats too much of it, it's fatal. I haven't seen anyone do that though, since it's kind of stupid and suicidal. Though I wouldn't put it past Blue…he's kind of dull in the head at times. Wouldn't surprise me if it took him years to recognize his nephew."

Lazue was quiet, her eyes darting around and noticing for the first time the shamanic items that hung on the walls as well as the bottles and other various containers that held strange things. Powders, liquids and solid objects filled shelves and some of the items were downright creepy. Just who was this woman?

But, more importantly, _why_ did they give the Sea Spectrum to her?

She decided to come out and ask as plainly as possible.

"After Violet came running up here and told me all about the strange things she saw going on inside your body when she tried to patch you up we began to suspect that you'd had a run-in with a Devil Fruit. Honestly, I've seen enough of you users myself to know what's normal and what isn't, having travelled the seas in my youth."

"Then you for sure know Ace is also–"

"Yep."

"And I'm–"

"Yep."

"So you're knowledgeable about these kinds of things and–"

"Yep."

"I can't even finish one sentence!" Lazue cried, her voice rising as she tried to combat the woman's tongue. It seemed an impossible feat.

"Yep, because I already know what you're going to say. You're kind of a predictable child." Lazue opened her mouth to shoot off a comment that should be left unsaid but, once again, Jaunis wasn't finished talking. "I'm a Devil Fruit user myself, just so you know. I ate the Janguru Janguru no Mi, or jungle fruit as I usually call it when it aids my flowers in taking over the house. It certainly improved my gardening skills!" She laughed raucously and Lazue stared, wondering how it was that everyone seemed to have a name for their fruits while she on the other hand knew next to nothing about hers.

"How do you know the name? I don't know what kind of fruit I've eaten, but I have some ideas of what it does…"

The old woman suddenly slung a plate of food at her, some kind of crazy rice dish that looked like it had everything in it but the kitchen sink. Lazue was too hungry to feel repulsed by the strange things she could see floating amongst the rice. She dug in, not waiting for her answer.

Across the table the elder had sat down with her own dish, stuffing its contents into her mouth like a bear fresh from a long hibernation. Lazue almost stopped eating in order to watch the spectacle that was the woman's expanding stomach but instead just shook her head clear and continued to try and satisfy her own gut. She'd seen Ace stuff melons in his mouth at this rapid speed before when he thought she wasn't looking.

Still, the old lady acted like she'd been fasting for months and the bits of food spraying from the corners of her mouth were beginning to disgust Lazue.

She glued her eyes to her plate and ate steadily. If she paid any more attention to Jaunis she might just lose her appetite.

They finished their meal without a word edgewise. The food was beginning to settle in Lazue's stomach and she felt awfully bloated. A look at the person across the table made her feel small in comparison.

"You want seconds?"

Lazue nearly choked on the water she'd been sipping at that had mysteriously appeared on the table sometime between the old lady's second and fourth helpings of food. "Er, no. I'm full."

Jaunis guffawed and pushed the plates in front of her away to the side. "So, in that case I guess it's time we do a little research, no? While we digest."

"Research?"

"Yep. Research." She hauled herself up from the table, ignoring Lazue's eyes as they stared at the expansion of her gut. She ambled to the far side of the room on her creaky bones and reached up to the top of a bookcase, bringing down with her a gigantic text. It was old like the woman; its pages were wrinkly and brown with sunspots.

The woman dropped the book on the table. "It's not exactly an original copy, but it makes up for it as a paperweight."

Lazue stood up to get a better look at the book. With the condition this old book was in, the woman could have told her it was from the last century and she would have believed it. "The Not-So-Complete Encyclopedia of Devil Fruits?"

"Yep. Knowledge passed down through the generations was all compiled into one book, which copies were made of. And I was lucky enough to come across one of the copies. Pretty nifty, isn't it?" Jaunis threw open the cover to expose a rather cryptic table of contents. Lazue scanned the text, noting that there were a lot of blank spaces and question marks. Not so complete indeed.

"Now, what kind of Devil Fruit did you eat? Paramecia, I'm guessing."

"Yeah, that's what Ace said. I mean, he told me Zoan types are animals and Logia types are elements," she recited from memory. "He also said paramecia are the most common."

"Yep, that's all correct. I'm a paramecia type of gal, too, by the way. Here, I'll show you the page for my fruit. Someone had my fruit a long time ago, so there was a smidgeon of information written about it already."

"There's more than one of the same fruit?"

"Ah, no. At least not at one time. When you die, for example, the fruit you ate will be reborn, though I have no idea how long this process will take. It's pretty mysterious, eh?"

Lazue nodded, her eyes watching the woman flip through the pages of the thick book. She caught glimpses of smudgy sketches that shared a common swirl-like pattern in the shape of fruits and thought back to what her own fruit had looked like. At last Jaunis stopped at a page that was badly dog-eared and had many different colours of writing on it, presumably from different people as some were faded and others seemed fresh.

"Here's mine. That's what it looked like," she pointed at a sketch, which depicted a relatively round fruit that reminded Lazue of a watermelon. "And this is what other people as well as myself have written about its powers."

Lazue peered at the handwriting, reading pieces of it. Some of the writing was messy and hard to decipher and others she could tell that Jaunis had been the one to scribe as they were freshly inked within this century. "It says you can make flowers grow anywhere, even on human bodies!"

The old woman snickered, "Yep, my son Bleu helped me figure that one out. That was about twenty years ago when Violet had just come to this island and started up her clinic. She about had a bird when I came down there with him, because you know the flowers wouldn't stop growing. I like to think that the time those two spent together picking flowers off of his body definitely brought them together."

Lazue said nothing, reading a bit more about Jaunis' flower power before flipping the page and looking at the sketch near the top. There was barely anything written under this particular fruit so she continued to flip pages, coasting through the compilation. There were a lot of strange powers and she read a bunch of outlandish things that she was unsure how to react to but after a bit she sat back in her chair, trying to get a grip on reality.

"You find anything that sounds like what you've eaten yet?" Jaunis asked softly.

"No, not really. Then again I hardly know what I'm looking for."

"Describe what you've managed to figure out about your abilities to me," Jaunis said in all seriousness. For once any traces of a smile or a laugh were gone and she seemed to age by twenty years.

Seeing this, Lazue spilled everything she had suspected about herself over the past few days. She told the woman about how she killed innocent animals without so much as a thought, how she could hear the heartbeats of people around her and how her hands seemed to be a key player in the accidental murders.

She had also admitted that she was scared of what lurked beneath her own skin. They reached the back flap of the book as they discussed what she'd just disclosed to Jaunis, the latter trying to remember if she'd read anything about a Devil Fruit that gave such a frightening power.

"Maybe mine's not in this book," Lazue whispered finally. On one hand she wanted to be able to learn about her fruit and on the other she wished that there wasn't a scrap of information about it. Frankly, she didn't want to know what weird things were going on inside her body. "Guess that's that then."

"No, no, start at the beginning of the book! This book has _always_ helped people before…" The old lady franticly flipped the book closed then opened it again, starting on page two. She began to sift through it, making sure Lazue was watching. She hadn't reason to worry about Lazue's eyes straying though, because the younger woman couldn't tear her eyes off of the pages.

Lazue brought a hand up and slammed it down on the book suddenly, encasing Jaunis' wrinkled hand in her own. "Wait! Go back for a second. I think that could be…"

They went back, Lazue's eyes widened as she gawked and Jaunis grinned in triumph.

"Found it, did we?"

Lazue nodded stiffly, looking at the scruffy, sketchy picture that had been drawn what had to be many, many years ago. Someone, probably the artist, had smudged colour on top of the ink lines and gave the fruit a dull red, almost brown portrayal. It was a sickly colour that Lazue didn't like to look at as it reminded her of the flakes of dried blood that she'd washed off her body this morning.

"Zuki Zuki no Mi…the 'throbbing pain' fruit. Huh, must be a reference to the fruit's powers," Jaunis said. Lazue's peered closer, gulping back anxiety. Most of the text, which wasn't much as there was only a paragraph and some hastily scribbled side notes, was faded and muddy as if water had smudged it. "It says 'useful for quick kills and quick revival.' Oh, and we can read this: 'Increases vitality when power is used on others. Can be used on anything with red blood running through veins. Abilities do not work against a fellow Devil Fruit user who can alter their being into that of an element.' Yep, that's interesting."

"There's more," Lazue said, noticing that Jaunis had only read from a note under the Devil Fruit's given title.

The old woman snorted, "Yeah, but I can't read it! Why, with my eyes–"

"I'll read it," Lazue muttered. She pushed in closer to the handwriting and traced the smudged shapes of the letters with her sharp eyes, trying to discern their meanings. "I think it says 'allows user to affect the innards of living organisms…causes internal conflicts in organs by means of rampant blood cells…' That sounds so _horrible_."

"Hmm, seems like you got a Devil Fruit that would be useful in battle rather than everyday life. Bet the World Government would've loved to get their grubby hands on this one."

Lazue nearly hid her face in her hands; she could feel how pale she'd become.

Seeing this, Jaunis quickly skimmed the written words and found something that hopefully wouldn't be taken too badly. "But look, it says here 'can be used to revive organisms so long as they've not been dead long enough for the blood to solidify or leak completely from the body. Limited to those who've been killed by the abilities of the fruit itself.' That sounds not so bad, right? It means if you do damage you can undo it. That's handy."

Her breath caught in her lungs. Lazue remembered the pain stricken face of the wolf she'd killed, then the startled and fearful glowing eyes that had been revived by her touch. Yes, she'd been able to right her wrong, but it was by mere chance that she'd done so. She hadn't known what she'd done to cause the corpse to come back to the land of the living. It had just happened under her hands.

Ignoring Lazue's ever changing emotional state, Jaunis kept reading to herself. She didn't want Lazue to leave the village unprepared. Rampant Devil Fruit users whose powers were uncontrolled often became labelled as a high threat to anyone and were hunted down by the World Government to be executed or…put to a different use. She didn't want Lazue to get into trouble out on the Grand Line when it could be easily avoided.

She was able to decipher a particularly important passage; it was one that Lazue might be able to understand the meaning of better than her. "Listen to this: 'Instances where multiple living beings are present may prove physically difficult for the user to deal with. However, through mastery of the abilities a suppression of the user's heightened awareness around living organisms is possible.' There, I think that must be referring to the headaches you told me about earlier. I believe there's a way to tone down your abilities to a bearable level, if that passage is any suggestion."

But Lazue was more captivated by pessimism. "It says it takes _mastery_ though. I don't think I have what it takes to become a _master_. I mean, honestly, I'm not cut out for this kind of stuff. I used to be a barmaid, not a fighter. The only fighting I did was when a customer refused to pay his tab, and even then I usually got someone else to cover for me if that customer became violent. There's no way a person like myself can master a Devil Fruit."

Across the table Jaunis reached over and smacked Lazue in the shoulder, hard enough to bruise. "Child! Put more faith in yourself! Have hope! If you learn anything today at all, it should be to just have a shred of hope that a better tomorrow awaits!"

Somehow, through the burning sting of her injured shoulder, Lazue found it in herself to smile at the clearly insane old hag in front of her.


	13. Chapter XIII

**...**

* * *

><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter XIII_

* * *

><p>The exact time when 'work' morphed into 'party' was a blur to Ace. All he knew now was that everyone was joking around and drinking down by the docks in addition to tying nets and repairing fishing poles, boats, and heaven knew what else. He also knew it seemed a bit dangerous to have alcohol and rusty fishing tackle in the same place.<p>

And yet Ace found himself in the centre of it all, laughing at some stupid jab towards the navy one of the fishermen made. He was surprised at how vulgar the men were when it came to spitting out nasty remarks about the marines, but he couldn't help but join in himself. Since their existence was the reason for a vast majority of his problems, he could justify the crude words he railed those uptight uniform-boys with.

Bleu's troop was like a horde of pirates, without, of course, the wanted posters. If Ace closed his eyes he could almost imagine that he was on the deck of the _Moby Dick_, Whitebeard's flagship.

That sudden thought made his blood run cold. Whitebeard. His crew. His latest mission.

He was so _screwed_.

Ace nearly dropped the netting Bleu was making him repair over the side of the dock with this epiphany. Damn, he'd forgotten that his captain had assigned him a special duty all those days ago. He hoped that his Pops wasn't pulling his white hair out in frustration with him right now. The old man had given him a few days leave to do the mission and he'd been gone for about a week. How was he going to explain his extreme tardiness?

As he was internally panicking, Bleu came up behind him and laughed at him.

"Whoa, you've got a lot of ringlets now, boy!" snorted Bleu, his eyes humorous and playful. He reached out with a hand in an attempt to play with Ace's hair. His hand was batted away, none too gently.

"When I get sweaty my hair gets curly, okay?"

Ace couldn't release his Devil Fruit abilities to wick away the moisture that had gathered on his skin, not with so many people in sight. He was still cautious about accidentally having something happen, like a sudden bout of fire come out of his hair or flames rolling off his stomach. Unexpected things like that had occurred when he'd first eaten his fruit, and he was still wary of unforeseen abilities showing themselves. His paranoia was only increased by the fact that Lazue was in a state of recovery and probably wouldn't be able to make a mad dash for survival should he do something stupid.

"Then strip down! Take off your shirt and just hang loose boy!" one of the more portly men hollered, emphasizing his point by swinging his large beer gut around. This got a rouse from everyone on the dock and, normally, Ace would have split his gut laughing but…

He couldn't take off his shirt. Absolutely not. His true identity would cause a flat-out stunned silence that would destroy the good mood of everyone present.

He remained silent, hoping that Bleu would just drop the matter. But, alas, much to his chagrin, Bleu instead rallied his boys against him.

"Hey, Ace, ye have nothin' to be shy 'bout!" one of the workers called. A circle of smiling drunks snickered. "We're not judging nothin' here!"

Ace groaned, seeing that Bleu was giving hand signals to his motley crew to move in for the attack. Ace was confident he could take them all on without breaking out in more sweat, but he didn't want to injure all these old men.

But he couldn't just let them take off his shirt either.

Quickly he clamoured to his feet, hauling the netting that had consumed the better part of his afternoon away from the water's edge. "Okay, listen, I have to leave this island soon. I have people waiting for my return." He was being honest, just not completely truthful.

"Oh really, what kind of people?" Bleu asked, genuinely curious. For a moment everyone stopped what they were doing to tune into their youngest charge's life. "Certainly not marines, ya made that clear. And you're no merchant with a ship like the one ye came on. No fisherman either, judging by yer sloppy knots. So that leaves pirating, right?"

Ace froze, trying his best to remain impassive. It didn't work; Blue caught the unwilling twitch of Ace's eyelids as well as the sharp intake of breath.

"Ah, so it _is_ a pirate crew that's a'waitin'." Bleu snorted and everyone else exchanged glances with one another, a slight ripple of unease spreading about the dock. One man's smile had slipped to an outright frown. "And, what be the name of this crew?"

Ace sighed, resigning himself to just stripping off his shirt and showing them. As soon as the sticky fabric left his skin and his mark was revealed he heard a sound he had not been expecting to hear.

Laughter.

_Bleu's_ laughter.

"So ol' Whitebeard got you to join his crew huh? You must be hella strong. Honestly though, what's a Whitebeard pirate doing on this little island?"

"Just passing through," Ace said quietly. He was unsure if Bleu was cross-analyzing him or simply making conversation. He decided not to reveal too much "My destination is back in the opposite direction, but we were blown off course by the storm and…other things."

"Huh," Bleu quipped, puffing out his chest as he stretched his back out. Bleu wasn't a terribly huge man, nothing like Whitebeard, but he did have thick coils of muscles from the work brought about by being a fisherman on the Grand Line. "That so. Unfortunate. Whitebeard gonna come lookin' for ya?"

A very tense silence permeated the dock's previous excitement. Ace took his time to think about that question. Finally he said, "No, not likely. Besides, even if he were to come he'd come in peace."

"I have heard he's not such a brutal man as other pirates make him out to be. He has many longstanding enemies, perhaps, but he has a sense of justice that even marines in this day and age seem to lack." Bleu scratched at his strawberry blonde hair thoughtful, then let loose an ear-splitting grin. "Least that's what me mum once told me. She apparently knew the man, fleetingly."

"…She knew Whitebeard?"

"Apparently. She mentioned him once, a long time ago when I was still young. She's alive though, me mum. It takes a lot to kill her." He laughed again, a languid, rolling laugh that reminded Ace of the swells on the sea.

Ace stood silently for a moment, contemplating his lost family connections. If Bleu were his uncle, Bleu's mother would be his own grandmother. "Where can I find her?"

"Hahah, think you're gonna get off work, do ya?" Bleu asked. Ace frowned and fixed the man with a firm unshakable stare. "Eh, fine. I see how it is. If ya want to find me mum, go towards the mountains."

With widened eyes at being let off so easily, Ace just stood there, glancing about the similarly understanding faces of Bleu's men. It seemed no one had any qualms about him leaving, much to his surprise.

"We were thinkin' about repairing your ship anyways. If ya need to return to Whitebeard then you're gonna need something to carry ya there," Bleu explained. He smiled broadly, that same cheeky smile Ace was well acquainted with as it was quite a bit like Luffy's. Only not as stupid looking.

"Thank you," Ace said, inclining his head in a humbling bow. "For being so understanding."

A loud guffaw emerged from Bleu's throat. "Get going, ya damn pirate!" He wasn't much for thanks. To him, the reward could be found when Ace saw his completed work. It wouldn't take him long to fix up the sloop, not with his crew of able-bodied workers.

Bleu moved off to untangle something and someone tapped Ace on the shoulder. He spun around to see a man with a permanent crease in his brow and an unsightly scar on his face.

"Thought I recognized you from your wanted poster. Didn't want to say anything case I was majorly wrong. Bleu, he don't pay attention to wanted posters and all that. He don't care who you are, and if you're a pirate or marine coming to the island with bad intentions, he'll beat you up with confidence. He'd fight Whitebeard. If you stay here much longer you'll see a spark of insanity from that man."

"Huh," Ace muttered. He didn't get a chance to respond with more, as the man was already off, back to his work. A few of the other members of Bleu's party gave him equally knowing stares, and he respected how easily they handled his presence.

Ace bid everyone a snappy goodbye and headed back toward the hamlet, pulling the shirt that hung limply in his hands back over his head. He did it for common courtesy though, because he knew he'd soon be meeting with an older woman, if he could find her. It would be rude to show up like a vagrant without any clothing on his back.

The mountain peaks were outlines clearly in the distance, their green tops contrasting against the stark blue of the sky. Ace passed the clinic, wondering briefly if he should stop in to see Lazue. He didn't turn around and go back. He figured that if she were trying to get some rest it would be better if he didn't disturb her.

He headed along the path that dwindled down in size to be nothing more than a forest trail weaving through the trees. Occasionally a flower bush situated under one of the trees would appear to shudder in the wind, though Ace couldn't feel any of nature's breath on his face. These flowers started becoming more frequent and more unnerving. They angled towards him as if sizing him up, studying him. At first Ace wondered if it was because he might be exuding warmth with this new anxiety that took root in his stomach. Perhaps the flowers were angling towards him because he was like a walking sun?

Ace shook his head. The idea was preposterous. He didn't even know where it had come from. The flowers were simply just weird flora that grew in the Grand Line and had to be treated as such. If they attacked him, then he'd attack them back.

He ignored the flowers, moving down the path until it abruptly ended. He turned around, noticing that the flowers that occasionally appeared in the undergrowth of the trees were now overruling all other foliage. They were everywhere he looked.

And they were all straining towards him.

"I'm looking for an old lady," Ace said slowly. He wondered if he was crazy to talk to these flowers but quickly dismissed his suspicions when he thought of all the strange adventures he'd been on in the past. Speaking to flowers was pretty tame in comparison to some of those memories.

"Does she live farther up towards the mountains?" he asked the flowers next.

Much to his amusement, the flowers continued to watch him unflinchingly. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, the heads of the blooms turned and stems began to shift. Ace looked around his person, noting that every flower in the vicinity was putting itself into a new position.

He waited for the blooms to stop moving before he moved again. Finally the flora was still once more and Ace had only to look at the sight in front of him to realize they'd cleared a path for him to walk through. A path that would have been invisible if they hadn't moved.

"Uh, thanks," Ace said softly, moving to continue on his way. If this were a trap surely the good-natured Bleu would have warned him. The flowers had a benevolent feeling to them, this much Ace could somehow sense. They wouldn't harm him, so he wouldn't harm them.

It was a mutual understanding. Fire would, after all, burn the hell out of any flora.

The path he picked his way down, careful not to step on any exposed plant roots or blooms, was so narrow that he had to walk sideways like a crab. It made progress slow but Ace soon realized that he'd reached his destination.

The flowers had been obscuring a house. Somehow he knew this was what he'd been looking for. He waddled sideways to the door, a small wooden frame that would force him to duck his head to enter. He prepared to knock, raising his fist to the wood.

Something surged out of the corner of his eye, grabbing his hand. More movement, then Ace realized that the flowers were making a grab for him, entwining around his body, lifting him with strength that bushes of flowers shouldn't possess. He was also aware that the door he was about to knock politely on was hanging open, flowers curled around the door handle being the culprit of this.

Before Ace could let loose a serious conflagration, the flowers tossed him inside the house, withdrawing completely from his body as he smacked against the floor with a grunt. Even though he was face down on what felt like a rug he could hear the door slam shut behind him.

He sat up, glancing around him until his eyes fell on one very surprised, very familiar face.

"You too, huh?" she questioned, looking between Ace and the door.

Ace hurried to his feet, scuttling over to the table that sat in the far side of the room that sat two woman, young and old. Upon reaching it he threw his arms around Lazue's neck. "You're okay! I-I mean, you're not unconscious anymore! That's good, that's really good…"

Lazue didn't quite know how to respond to this outcry of concern as she'd never really experienced such a thing before. She stayed quiet, letting Ace tentatively hug her while Jaunis laughed raucously in the background.

After a full minute of Ace being attached to her, seemingly checking her over for further injury, she finally said, "Um, you can let go of me now. I'm fine, really, but I'm starting to get a bit light-headed from air loss. You've been pushing me against your stomach and its kind of rock hard. No breathing space."

"O-oh, sorry." Ace immediately let go of her, hands dropping to his sides awkwardly.

Lazue pulled at his shirt, noticing with a grimace that the fabric was damp with perspiration. "Come sit with us, we were just talking about you."

"About me?" Ace inquired warily. He took a seat, giving the giggling old hag across from them a good look for the first time. She was quite portly, wore a blouse with a blue floral pattern and had many wrinkles creasing her face. All in all, she looked friendly by Ace's standards.

Looking at her kind face, he felt like he should know her, yet he did not.

"This is Jaunis," Lazue introduced softly. "She's been helping me come to terms with my Devil Fruit."

Ace quirked a skeptical eyebrow at this information. "Really?"

"Huh, so you're the grandson I never got to meet…until now," the old woman said bluntly. Ace stiffened, feeling a creeping sense of alarm. "You look a hell of a lot like that damned Roger, but you have Rouge's face, right down to the way she looked when she was worried about something."

Ace opened his mouth to say something, perhaps scorn his father and inadvertently get on the woman's good side or to ask about Rouge, but the woman was still chatting.

"Thank goodness. Really, I could never take that man seriously; he always had the stupidest happy-go-lucky grin. He always used to step on my flowers too, that son of a bitch."

Ace was feeling a bit uncomfortable sitting across from a woman who knew his biological father. He wasn't sure if he wanted to hear about him or not. No, he'd rather hear about his mother. No one knew his mother and everyone knew Gol D. Roger.

"My mother–" Ace tried to interject.

"Was damned insane to set sail with that man. He ate too much. He drank even more. But somehow she did love him and I guess that's why I let her go, though I regret it now."

"Tell me about her," Ace pleaded. It was different from speaking with Violet. Even though she'd been Rouge's closest friend, sitting in front of him blabbering on about the Pirate King was the woman who'd raised her. "Anything, tell me anything."

For a moment Jaunis paused mid-rant, sticking an old knobby hand out towards Lazue, pointing a finger at her. "That was your mother's favourite dress. Apparently she wore it the day before she gave birth to you, or so Violet has told me. She brought the dress back with her when your mother passed."

Lazue gaped, feeling herself going pale. If she had known the history of that sallow blue dress she would have never put it on. It felt as though she was being disrespectful, wearing the clothing of someone who'd died. "I-I didn't know!" she exclaimed when Ace looked at her, his face oddly emotionless.

He lifted a hand and placed it gently on Lazue's shoulder, fingertips feeling the well-worn fabric there. Then, with a barely audible sigh he let his hand drop away. He felt nothing while looking at that dress and feeling the fabric between his fingers. Ace didn't know what that meant, but decided that since it was only Lazue wearing it, it didn't matter.

"I have a feeling that you didn't come solely to talk to me about your mother," Jaunis stated mysteriously. Ace turned his attention away from Lazue and the blue sundress and back to the old woman. "Violet knew exactly who you were the moment you showed up and she told me, but kept it from her husband." The old woman tilted her head to the side and wrinkled her brow further. She looked like she was pondering something. "I would imagine by now everyone on the island knows your connection to Whitebeard. Want to know mine?"

Ace was surprised the woman was so well informed for being so far away from the events down by the shore. He eagerly nodded, his dark bangs getting in his face. "How do you know Pops?"

Jaunis snorted. "So that's what you lot call him now? Well, he always was a family man, even in his youth."

Ace gave her a questioning stare, willing her to elaborate.

Jaunis chuckled at the expression on the child's face, knowing full well she'd seen that look before from her own daughter. It was uncanny, their resemblance. Even if they were blood related, how was it that the facial expressions matched perfectly?

"I knew him way back when he didn't have much of a name to him. I was after something back then and he helped me find it."

"What was it?" Ace had to ask, though he knew it really wasn't his business to do so.

Jaunis smiled, no traces of irritation from having him dig into her personal life abounding on her face. "It was a book, or rather, a copy of a book."

"A book? Are you serious?" Ace couldn't keep the disbelief from his tone and Lazue shot him a reprimanding glare.

"A book. A very old book that I still have in my possession today. Whitebeard wanted one for his family, to help them become more knowledgeable about themselves. He stole it from the Government. They thought he was going to use it against Devil Fruit eaters everywhere, but it wasn't his original intention."

"So he stole a book from the Government?" asked Ace, incredulous. What could be so valuable about a stack of papers with some binding that his Pops would directly steal it from the World Government?

"Yes, in fact, it sits right in front of your nose," Jaunis replied with a smirk.

Ace looked down and noticed, for the first time, the massive book that was cracked open on the table. He looked down at the page, noticing that there was an all-too-familiar drawing on it.

"That's…"

"Yeah," Lazue said, following his gaze. "It's a picture of my Devil Fruit. This book is a collection of information about those things."

"So Whitebeard stole this," Ace muttered, touching the worn pages gently. He failed to see the significance of a stack of bound pages. Prior to this, he had believed his Pops hadn't any interest in reading.

"Correction. He stole not just this volume, but copies of the same book which were then distributed amongst people who swore to keep the them safe. One went to me, he kept one for his crew, Roger _somehow_ obtained one being the rascal that he was, another went to the scholars of Ohara…many of these books went out, but I'm sure only a few have survived up to present day."

"These sound like very important books," Lazue said after Jaunis paused to take a breath, a rare opportunity to let others speak.

"Knowledge is power, so yes, they are important…perhaps one day they will be once again brought together to form a more complete account of the strange and wondrous powers in this world. But I am much too old to take my share of the research and find other holders of these books to get their information. Which is why…" she trailed off and Lazue could swear her eyes started tinkling brightly in her direction. "…I was hoping you could help me out."

Lazue stared; first at the aforementioned book, and then at the woman in front of her that she was now certain was quite senile. "How the hell do you find one-of-a-kind _books _on the _Grand Line_?"

"It might be hard, but you have your whole life ahead of you. And I'm as good as dead in the ground within a very short period of time."

"Absolutely not. I don't intend to continue sailing on the seas for the rest of my life," Lazue told the woman firmly. She would not allow herself to be bullied into something so absurd. Did this woman really take her as an archivist sort?

"It is beneficial to the world if these books are once again brought together and the information shared, wouldn't you agree?" Jaunis asked sweetly, her tone artificial. "Knowledge is not only power as I have already said, but understanding can bring about happiness. And I believe that it's thanks to this book that you've gained a greater understanding of yourself. Happiness can only follow. So please, Lazue, take this book with you and pass on the information I have spent many years gathering."

After that spiel, and turning to face Ace who watched her expectantly, Lazue found she couldn't brusquely decline an old lady any longer. "Fine," she muttered crossly, "I'll take this damn book off your hands for you."

Jaunis cheerfully clapped her hands together. "Good, I knew you'd see it my way. The first most logical place to bring the book would be to Edward's lap."

"Edward?" Lazue questioned.

"Whitebeard," Ace supplied helpfully.

Jaunis just looked plain annoyed. "Well whatever fancy name you want to give him."

Lazue rolled her eyes, reaching out and tugging the huge text towards her. "Then what? What happens then?"

"Then you wait; see if anyone comes for you. It doesn't matter if you're sailing around the world or stuck on an island for the rest of your life. The only thing that matters is that the book is kept safe. If you are stuck on an island, then the others holding copies of this book will find you. Trust me on that."

After all that had happened to her in the past week and a bit, Lazue didn't know who to trust anymore. But the old woman seemed genuine enough, and she had helped her out. So she would try to trust this senile elderly hag. For now.

Lazue picked up the book from the table, weighing it in her hands. It felt as though she'd picked up her old tavern's mule, it was so heavy. With a grunt, Lazue let the book drop to the table, smacking the wood surface loudly. Jaunis laughed at her meagre efforts.

"Oh, there's one more thing I have to give you," Jaunis remembered suddenly, finishing up her giggling fit.

"What now?" Lazue moaned, praying it wasn't something ridiculously heavy like the book.

The old woman got up from the table and waddled over to a cabinet, opening it. It housed various glass jars full of paraphernalia, some strange looking that reminded Lazue of body parts and others that were nothing more than white powder sitting in a container. Jaunis took her time looking over various glass jars until finally she pulled one down and handed it to Lazue.

Lazue looked at the tiny beads inside the glass jar that seemed to come in every colour imaginable. "It's droplets of Sea Spectrum, solidified to use as a medicinal plant for healthier looking skin. Of course I already told you about its _other_ use. So take them until you master your abilities."

Then Jaunis winked and Lazue felt herself heat up with a blush. Mastery? Could she do that before the beads ran out?

As if aware of Lazue's thoughts, Jaunis said, "There are literally thousands in this container, so I doubt you'll run out during your lifetime. Once a day should be good and curiously enough they dissolve in liquids, so you don't even have to take it like a pill. Nifty, ain't it?"

"Nifty," Lazue agreed half-heartedly. She glanced up at Ace, who gave her a confused eyebrow-arch and nodded towards the glass jar that held the rainbow. She just shrugged and turned away from him, feeling slightly embarrassed that she would be given something to nullify her Devil Fruit powers when he had full control over his. She didn't plan on telling him about the _other_ use for what she held.

Ace recognized when to drop a subject and instead turned back to the old woman who had resumed her seat at the table. "You still haven't told me much about my mother."

"Perhaps it would be best if, rather than simply tell you, you experience," Jaunis said cryptically. "There is a room in this house that I haven't stepped foot in for just shy of twenty years. It is my daughter's – your mother's – room. It is past the door at the very end of that hallway." The old woman pointed to a hall off the main kitchen area. "Why don't you go see it? Take your time, I wish to speak privately to Lazue about womanly matters anyway."

At that, Ace tore out of there and down the hallway, intent on seeing his mother's room but even more eager to get away before 'womanly matters' were openly discussed.

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><p><strong>A.N.:<strong> Exams are coming up for me, so I'm taking a break from writing for a while. Also, this site has been going around deleting things and such, and as some of you know my work is kind of borderline 'unsuitable' for the site, so I've made an account on An Archive of Our Own under 'Reiki' and will be uploading my stories there soon enough. Don't worry, I'll keep uploading here…until they kick me out.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter!


	14. Chapter XIV

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><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter XIV_

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><p>The door was painfully plain. Ace stood outside his mother's bedroom, searching that wooden frame for something profound, a new discovery that would tell him something about his mother that he never knew. But he couldn't find anything. There was nothing special about this door and it made him wonder, <em>Is there be anything in my mother's room that could change me?<em>

There was one thing that scared him more than finding answers to his mother's past and that was not finding anything at all. It would be like a thunderstorm in Alabasta without rain. Disappointing on all levels.

Ace braced himself, ironing his most passive emotions into place, before placing a hand on the door's handle. He turned it and let go immediately, letting the door creak open of its own accord. Inside was semi-dark save for a single shaft of light from a small window. It reminded him of going into a dank tunnel with a fuzzy light at the end.

He lit a flame on the end of his finger, holding it out in front of him to use as a guide until he found a light switch. It was later on in the day and the time Ace had spent with Lazue and Jaunis had been longer than he'd anticipated. It would be night soon and the sun was setting outside that single window, splashing streaks of colour onto his single flame in the near darkness.

He could hear conversation pick up down the hall in the kitchen. He didn't want to hear the womanly matters discussed, so quickly he dove into the darkness and shut the door behind him. He leaned against the closed door for a second with his single flame sitting atop his index finger, getting his bearings, then let his hand flare, illuminating the room in a wash of reddish orange light.

He spotted a light switch and flicked it. Surprisingly, an overhead lamp sputtered to life, giving the room a soft beige tinge. He extinguished his fire and stepped forward, eyes moving everywhere at once.

The room was painted to remind the viewer of a meadow. The walls were a light green and painted over that green were flowers of all shapes, sizes, and colours. It was girly, maybe, but it was also oddly calming, too. It went well with the sparse furniture pieces, made from trees that grew on the island. A single dresser, a bedside table and the posts that made up the bed all matched. Perhaps they'd been made by Rouge's father? Ace put that question aside to ask Jaunis about later, should he get the chance.

He went and sat gingerly on the bed, which was outfitted with a floral quilt. It was soft to the touch and Ace couldn't help himself as he leaned down and smelled the fabrics. They smelt like dust for the most part, but oddly enough there was a smell he didn't recognize. A part of him wanted to believe that the unfamiliar scent was what his mother smelled like, yet he knew traces of her aroma wouldn't be found after twenty years. It would be impossible for them to be preserved for so long. His mother wasn't a flower to be pressed into the pages of a book.

He straightened and glanced about the room again, taking note of the empty vase that sat atop the dresser. He went over and picked it up, the glass weighing nothing in his hands. The inside of the vase was covered in a thick layer of dust. It likely hadn't been used since Rouge's departure from her home all those years ago.

He placed the vase carefully back into the ring of dust on the dresser, sniffling a little at the musty air that surrounded him. With some hesitation he then pulled out one of the drawers in front of him, fully expecting them to be empty. The first one on the top was devoid of possessions and he closed it before heading to the next one in line. One by one he opened and closed the drawers until he was sitting on the floor, puling out the last one dejectedly. He had assumed Jaunis would clean out Rouge's belongings, but he had hoped that maybe there would be something else besides that pale blue dress that remained as a reminder of his mother's life.

Much to his astonishment his mental plea was answered. He found a bundle of different coloured cloth tied together with a red ribbon, tucked into the farthest corner of that last drawer.

He lunged for it though he knew it wouldn't be making any escape. The small bundle was feather-light in his lap and for a moment he scrutinized the ribbon, wondering if he should untie the perfect bow to further investigate his find. It felt intrusive, yes, but his curiosity got the better of him and he grabbed a strand of that ribbon, tugging a bit harder than necessary.

The neat package spilt open, scattering in a heap all around him. He grimaced at the mess he made of things before gathering up the bits of cloth. It was clear to him now that his mother had been in the process of making a quilt or something of the like as each piece of cloth was different but cut into identical squares.

He picked up some of the squares, examining the stitching on them. It was neat, careful, and precise. From it he could see his mother had been a patient person but he didn't know what else he could glean from her sewing skills. In the end it was just scraps of meaningless fabric in his hands.

He began to gather them back up, intent on somehow creating that perfect little package again with the ribbon binding it all together. He laid all the pieces flat on top of each other on the wooden floor, stacking them in a cube formation.

There was a bigger piece of fabric that had seen much love and attention, and it had fallen far from his crossed legs so he'd ignored it before now. Ace guessed that it was the bulk of the project, the actual quilt itself. He opened this heap of cloth up and immediately flinched when he heard the loud _thunk_ that followed.

He whisked the cloth away, finding a small book on the floor. It was a black book with no lettering on the front and the insides were stuffed with loose papers. Ace's heart picked up speed as he reached towards this item, grasped it, and cradled it in his hands. For a minute, all he could do was stare at the overflow of papers that resided within.

With bated breath, he opened the little black book.

Its contents, so precariously placed inside, fell out and scattered on the floor. There were numerous envelopes and for a moment he forgot to look at the book in his hands, instead reaching out to clutch one of those fallen scraps of paper between his fingers. He held it up, examined it, then drew in a deep breath as he saw it was addressed to his mother with no return address.

He opened the envelope, fingers reaching in and snatching up the fold of the letter, withdrawing it completely. Ace unfolded it and brought it to his face, eyes roving the messy and nearly illegible handwriting.

_My Beautiful Flower,_

_I hope this letter finds you well fed. I know you like to share your food with the village children, but please be eating enough to sustain yourself! I don't want my flower to wither! (Is that self-centered, Rouge?)_

_I'm sorry; I'm obviously waiting for the chef to make the mid-day meal. I don't have much else to do in the way of captainly matters, so I decided to write you another story of my travels. I hope you won't laugh too hard at my bad storytelling skills. _

_This particular adventure started when we entered a whirlpool and, much to the cabin boys' amazement, we were knocked up by an underwater current into the sky. At first I'll admit everyone on board was screaming as we all thought we were going to die but then – and this is the surprising part – we went shooting up through a cloud and actually sat on a sea of white fluff, perfectly alive and well. Which is always nice, you know, to be alive._

_It wasn't long until we realized we had made it up to a sky island, all by chance. Imagine the surprise on those kids' faces, almost as surprised as they were when you presented them with those clothes you'd sewn for them the last time we visited Matanza. _

_So, we landed on a sky island, finding ourselves breathing. Hyperventilating and laughing in some cases (Buggy and Shanks). Drunk in others. Namely first mate Ray, whom you know well.  
><em>

_Anyways, everything was white, everywhere we looked. Kind of reminded me of mountains of white rice, to tell you the truth…_

Ace skimmed the rest of the letter, reading snippets of the text. He had been to a sky island himself and frankly reading a half-assed account of a crew's experience was not amusing for him.

He flipped the letter over, skimmed the last few sentences for any traces of his mother's name appearing in print and then read the name of the person, feeling his heart skip a beat.

His eyes traced the flow of the letters, back and forth. Continuously.

Gol D. Roger.

The man who spawned him. His biological father. _That_ man.

He grimaced, putting the letter away back into its envelope. He picked up another, pulled out the paper inside and checked the final closing words, the name at the end of the letter. The same man. He checked a few others. The same man.

It told him, at the very least, that his father had not just knocked up a random woman; there was obviously some sort of love between them and a friendship documented in these letters, just as Jaunis had implied. It was…a respite. He didn't just want to be the product of a bit of booze and hungry hormones. Garp had never told him what kind of a relationship his biological father had had with his mother, only that Ace himself should try to forget that he was born of a pirate and focus on becoming a marine.

The thought brought a little smile to his face. As if that old man could convince him to become a marine when the blood of a pirate flowed through his veins.

He returned the letters to the black book, but not before thumbing through the pages to check if there was any writing to be found within. Much to his disappointment, each and every page was blank, only containing the flyaway letters. He had been hoping he'd found his mother's journal of sorts, but alas it contained not even a hastily scribbled to-do list.

With his keen ears he heard footsteps approaching the room and was on his feet before the person had opened the door.

He still held the book in his hands when Jaunis peeked her head around the door to see him standing there, looking like a child caught ransacking the cookie jar. Despite the serious talk she'd had with Lazue, which had just ended on a rather bitter note, Jaunis laughed at Ace. Oddly enough he reminded her of her own children and the faces they used to make when caught doing something they knew they shouldn't be.

"Relax, I expected you to find that," the old woman said, still chuckling absently. She entered the room and went to stand next to Ace, the tip-top of her head of white hair barely coming to his shoulder. "Those were very important to Rouge; she saved every single letter ever written to her. I have never read any of them because she asked me not to, but you might as well. You're her son after all. I'm sure she would be glad to share them with you."

"…I don't think I want to read them," Ace admitted awkwardly. He felt a grip on his gut, like he was enveloped in a sudden crushing embrace. "The person who sent her letters…I don't really want to read about _him_."

Jaunis could feel her heart go out to this boy. Sure, she hadn't truely liked Roger herself, hell, the man's name brought a bitter taste to her mouth, but no child should have had to grow up without any parental figures. Then an image of a blond man with a rather impressive jaw entered her thoughts.

Whitebeard. Ah, of course. The man collected lost souls and helped them find their own path in life.

"At least you have him now," she muttered, swallowing back her emotions before she did something she might regret. Like hug Ace, for example. It wasn't her place to do so. Not in this reality. Perhaps if things had worked out differently and he'd been born on the island to a different man she could have had a grandson. But she knew she couldn't have Ace.

He belonged to others, not to the people of Matanza Island.

"Hmm? What did you say?" Ace asked, straining his ears.

"Oh, nothing." She shook her head, a wistful smile coming about her features. When she opened her eyes again she was met with the inquisitive eyes of a teenager. "Take that bundle, all of it. I don't want to be reminded of what I have lost any longer. I have a weak enough heart as it is, I don't need any more triggers for heart attacks lying around."

Ace looked down at the fragments of the quilt and at the book in his hands, empty of words but at the same time full of letters, and then back at the woman whose life seemed to stretch behind her compared to his which moved ahead. She suddenly seemed much older than before, perhaps because seeing Ace holding the remains of his deceased mother had put an age on her. That or her mention of a weak heart.

"But I…" Ace trailed off, unsure of how he could refuse such a request.

"Lazue will take this stuff if you won't," Jaunis said, moving towards the bundle of fabric on the floor. "She has expressed interest in writing now that I've given her a task she must complete."

"An…interest in writing?" Ace questioned aloud, tasting the words for himself. It sounded so…strange.

Jaunis chuckled, "Seems she hasn't told you all she used to do in her spare time when not serving drunkards."

Ace didn't know why a sneer crawled onto his face, but he pinned it on the fact that he didn't like Jaunis telling him that she knew more about Lazue than he did. He had spent far more time with that girl; surely he was the one who would be closer to her?

Yet, Jaunis' words had illuminated that chasm between them better than his fire could have. He realized he didn't really know much about the bartender that had become his acquaintance and, dare he even think it, his friend. It was disconcerting to think he hadn't the slightest clue as to what Lazue liked to do in this world.

As he gathered up said woman and they made their way back to the clinic, Ace resolved that he would take the time to do some friendly interrogation.

* * *

><p>That night, Ace found he wasn't quite so eager to interrogate when they crawled into bed together. After all, Lazue was making it very clear to him that she did not want to partake in useless chatter about her life before Ace had jumped into it.<p>

"Okay, this is my side of the bed, and this is your side of the bed. And if you dare to cross this invisible boundary, I will smother you with the huge ass book."

Ace snorted in disbelief but didn't say that if she tried to smother him with a book, he would simply burn it up until only ashes remained. He let her have her defence against him.

"You know," Ace started absently, keeping his voice low, "we've already shared a bed numerous times now. And I haven't touched you yet."

"That's a lie."

"It is?" Ace asked incredulously. He refrained from sitting up and staring down at Lazue with disbelief, but only barely.

"Yeah, on the last island we were on I woke up with your arm around me. You were trying to kill me with your overheated body. I thought I'd gotten a heat stroke that was going to take my damned life."

Ace bit his lip, feeling a pulsation of anger at being accused of something he couldn't control all that well during his sleep. "Sorry, I can't help it. And what I meant by touching you was…well, I haven't exactly made any _moves _on you. Like, sexual moves–"

"Yes, yes, I know what you meant," Lazue snapped quickly, cutting off Ace before he could embarrass them both. She turned around in bed to face him, clutching the blanket they shared tightly to her chest. She was wearing only a _thin_ nightgown, a request she had made of Violet when asking her for extra clothes. If she and Ace were going to share the only nice bed in the clinic, then she was _not_ going to overheat while trying to get some sleep.

In the darkness she tried to study Ace's face. He was facing her too, across the invisible border she'd placed between them. She could feel his eyes on her and knew that he was aware she was looking at him too.

After a lengthy moment of staring, Ace brought his hand up and lit a small flame on the end of his finger, enough to illuminate both of their faces in a smooth red glow. Their wide eyes twinkled at one another and Ace dimmed his flame, just a bit, in case Lazue was going to actually pick up that encyclopaedia that she'd set down beside the bed on a table and beat him with it.

He didn't _really_ want the book to burn. Not when his Pops had stolen it from the Government. Or whatever he had done. Ace still didn't quite grasp its significance. He would have to ask Whitebeard when he got back to the _Moby Dick_. Whenever that was going to be.

"What, you want to admire me in your candlelight?"

The question, Ace thought, was supposed to scorch him and make him dampen his fire altogether. However, Lazue had asked that question so quietly and daintily that Ace wondered if she were being serious. A stirring in his chest made him reply, "Yeah, I'm admiring you." He licked his lips, then told her truthfully, "You're pretty."

Whether Lazue blushed or not, Ace couldn't tell with the reddish-orange glow cast upon her features. Without warning, Lazue rolled over onto her side, away from Ace's nervous eyes that awaited her response.

"You have no idea how many drunks have said that same damn phrase to me before, when I was a barmaid. And every one of them only said it because they wanted to sleep with me. Men will say anything to get a woman into their bed." She snorted, not at all effeminately. "Luckily for you, I'm already here, so that's half the challenge already done."

Before he could stop himself or think of the consequences of his actions, Ace reached out an arm and curled it around Lazue's waist, drawing her backwards and into his chest. She drew in a sharp breath, but didn't scream or thrash. Just lay still, unflinching.

"Listen," Ace whispered, "I'm not a drunk and I don't just say things like that without thinking. I always mean what I say, and I'm just saying that I think you're really pretty. I'm not asking for anything else, just stating something that I've noticed."

He withdrew his arm just then, drawing it back to his side. Their bodies were still touching, but Ace wouldn't move away. He _couldn't_ move away anyway, even if he wanted to. The bed was far too small to allow such liberal movements.

"You can go back to your side of the bed and I promise I won't touch you anymore tonight."

After a minute of silence, Lazue spoke up softly. "Your warm chest feels good against my back. The skin still hurts."

"Would you like me to stay like this then?" Ace asked, inclining his face so that his nose brushed her hair. He could smell a flowery scent coming from her, though he couldn't tell if it was because of all the time Jaunis had spent with her or because she'd washed her hair with a scented shampoo.

Yes, he'd noticed that she'd washed up. Hell, he noticed pretty much everything about her when they had met up again in Jaunis' home. It was starting to surprise him how much he paid attention to her.

As he was thinking this, he felt slender fingers take hold of his wrist and pull his arm away from his body. His arm was snaked around Lazue's waist, his hand drawn up to rest just below the curve of Lazue's breasts. She moved her hand from his wrist and placed her palm over his hand, pressing down gently. "This is fine," she whispered.

Ace couldn't bring himself to say anything more, though he wished to ask her all sorts of questions. He didn't want to wreck the moment nor did he wish for her to withdraw this new privilege of sticking close to her body that he had been granted. He sat still, just enjoying the fact that he had someone next to him in bed, something he hadn't had since cuddling up with his little brother Luffy…and Sabo. On the _Moby Dick_ they all gathered below deck in the barracks to sleep, which made for company, but they were never too close. They slept in the same vicinity, but they didn't share their hammocks with one another.

He swallowed thickly as he tried to force his body to calm down, lest he start burning in the middle of the night. His mind wondered what it would be like to feel skin against skin and he shifted his chest slightly, just to feel the thinness of the layer of cloth that separated them. He knew, without asking, that Lazue must have been thinking along the same lines as he. She just _had _to be. Pulling his arm around her like that had not been an innocent gesture. This Ace knew. He wasn't as daft as people thought he was.

They were dancing around the fire, but neither could admit that they were starting to burn.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N.:<strong> Thanks for all the reviews, I read each and every one carefully. Lately I haven't had a whole lot of time for writing and _replying_ to things, but hopefully that will change during the summer months...


	15. Chapter XV

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><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter XV_

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><p>Lazue was the first to awaken. She awoke violently, lurching into a sitting position on the bed and jarring Ace's arm from her waist so it lay in her lap.<p>

A bell. She could hear a bell clanging noisily somewhere on the island.

Heart thumping loudly in her chest, Lazue began to shake Ace into wakefulness. He groggily managed to open his eyes and peer up at her, and when he finally heard what she heard, he bolted up into a sitting position beside her.

"What is _that_?" she yelped now that Ace was wide-awake and listening.

"Sounds like a warning bell. Some islands have these to warn villagers of a fire and to call for help from the entire village," Ace said slowly. He jumped out of bed and hurried to pull a shirt on. "Get dressed."

Lazue climbed out of bed and scooped up some of her old clothes, then headed to the bathroom to change. When she returned Ace was peering out a window into the dawn, trying to piece together what was going on.

He turned around when he heard her approach, his eyes full of unrestrained worry, but before he could open his mouth and tell her what he'd just discovered, a man burst into the clinic shouting.

"There's a marine warship in the harbour and several supporting vessels! Bleu says you two need to get down to the wharf!"

Lazue gasped and took a step back from the man who just burst in, panting and out of breath. Ace grabbed her arm and tugged her forwards towards the doorway. "W-wait!" Lazue cried. "Shouldn't we be trying to hide?"

"No," Ace snapped firmly. "We have to go right now. They'll blow apart this island and kill everyone on it…they're not going to go soft on a criminal like me."

The older man in the doorway nodded grimly, silently agreeing with Ace's words. Ace knew him to be one of Bleu's fishing nakama, and knew that the man was as well aware of the danger of this situation, just as Ace himself was.

"Everyone's already down at the harbour. But there's one thing you should know before you try to leave this island. We're all going to fight, and not for you, but for what we've lost to the World Government in the past. Good luck getting out of here, Rouge's son. We hope you'll make it out safely."

Ace froze, but did not have time to speak out as the man disappeared back outside to re-join the battle Ace saw brewing from the window.

Lazue stood silently, contemplating what their next action should be as best she could. Fear gripped her gut and make thinking rationally hard. Lazue still thought it would be wise to try their luck at hiding out, but Ace assured her that nothing good would come of not confronting the enemy.

"Grab everything you want to take and I'll carry it in this," Ace said, gesturing to a bag he found. Lazue obliged shakily, placing the heavy encyclopedia into the packsack Ace had grabbed and emptied of medical supplies. She also threw in Rouge's diary and letters as well as a few clothes that she'd laid out near the bed. The last thing to go into the bag was the large jar of Sea Spectrum. When she finished packing, she once again tried to convince Ace that maybe they should head in the opposite direction of the harbour, into the mountain at the back of the island.

He fervently disagreed, but with so little time couldn't explain to her why her ideas were not going to work in anyone's favour.

In a hurry, he ended up dragging her out of the clinic and into the streets by her wrist. He was not about to leave her behind to be preyed upon when the marines blew past the fishermen's lines and devastated the village.

Already they could see smoke rising down by the docks, and Ace felt a hot sensation curl in his stomach when he realized that a fire was burning somewhere close. He moved his fingers downward to grab Lazue's hand and, though she was unwilling, both ran down to the shoreline.

"Shit, they've barricaded us in," Ace growled as they drew up alongside the male villagers rushing to assemble themselves and grab weapons. A massive warship proudly flying the colours of the marines flanked by several smaller vessels blocked the exit out to sea.

"How are we supposed to leave if they're blocking the way to the sea? And how the hell are we supposed to leave anyway when our ship is like _that_!" She gestured to the weather beaten form the hunched low in the water, main mast absent. It occurred to Ace that this would be the first time Lazue had seen their damaged sloop. He had explained to her what had happened to it, but he knew the sight of the damage was worse than the imaginative picture his words had wrought.

Ace looked over at Lazue, noting that she was visibly trembling. He removed his hand from hers and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, drawing her close. "Look, I know this isn't what you want to hear, but we're going to have to fight them and forcibly break our way through on something else. I haven't figured out _what_ yet. And I don't know about you, but I'd much rather sacrifice the lives of the marines than the lives of these villagers. Your Devil Fruit ability is going to come in handy right now."

She twisted out of his grip, glaring at him with horror and anger. "I'm not killing anyone!"

Before Lazue could voice her protests any further, the sound of cannon fire split their eardrums.

Ace dove down despite knowing that artillery couldn't harm him, bringing Lazue with him to the sandy shores as a cannonball whizzed some distance over their heads. It smashed into a boathouse and demolished it, sending splinters into the air to shower unfortunate nearby bodies.

Ace had heard the familiar sounds of men howling in pain in the thick of battle many times before, but for Lazue, the screaming left her frozen in fear for her life and the lives of everyone else standing there on the beach with them. They were all targets where they were, sitting ducks out in plain sight.

She wanted to curl up into the soft sand and cry or, better yet, try her best to bandage up the wounded, but someone was tugging her to her feet. She was about to lash out at this person, and scream that she needed to go and help people, but stopped herself before she could land the hit.

"What are you doing on the ground, children? You should be up and ready to flee at a moment's notice," Jaunis chided, a wry smile on her face that was entirely forced. "Come now, the both of you. Follow me."

"B-but, t-they're injured!" Lazue cried, turning around to see men digging bits of wood out of their flesh, blood pouring down arms and legs and stomachs. Her eyes scanned the rest of the shore and she found that Bleu's men had overturned their wooden boats and were using them as cover while they peeked out and shot at the invading ships with hunting rifles. What protection those little wooden shelters offered was minimal, and Lazue knew with a sinking in her gut that a single cannonball would likely destroy their forts as well as take their lives.

"They will be fine. Some of them are fighting because I told them an interesting fact about dear Ace. That is, who his mother was. But most are fighting because they need to fight. The pull for revenge is something many men succumb to. These men have been waiting for this opportunity for a long time. Over twenty years."

Lazue watched as Jaunis spread her arms wide out from her sides and spoke soundlessly amid the cries of war. When she dropped her hands, after a fleeting moment of chanting, the island itself came alive to fight alongside them.

Flowers and vines emerged from under rocks along the mountainside, slithering down the paths and over houses like millions of little snakes. They crept over the sandy beach with speed and down the dock, entangling around wooden beams and trees that stood near the shore.

Ace watched as those vines raised themselves and created a natural barrier, a netting strong enough to bounce back cannonballs a few feet into the water. Some of the vines caught fire with stray gunpowder leaking from the men shooting at the ships and quickly Ace put the fires out, reaching for the source of the flames and demanding that they cool themselves.

Jaunis was cackling merrily as she ran down the beach at a pace Ace and Lazue were equally bewildered at. The main artillery fire shifted its direction as Ace and Lazue followed her, with Ace being the main target. For a second, Ace wondered if he should turn in another direction and distract the navy while Lazue and Jaunis got away, but, as if guessing his thoughts, Jaunis grabbed hold of the front of his shirt.

"Don't think you're going anywhere without your little lady! Besides, I have a plan and I need your powers to help me out."

Ace relented and followed the elder's lead, throwing a few fiery fists out towards the bay when bullets or chainshot came too close for his liking. Beside him, tears were streaming down Lazue's face and she kept looking behind her, into the past, at the men they'd left behind on the shore, some lying in the sand, unmoving.

The firing of cannons ceased momentarily as Ace, Lazue, and Jaunis reached the end of the beach and headed into a forested area, continuing along the side of the bay. The front of the ships were refocusing their forces on the fishermen who, aided by the cover of Jaunis' red flowery vines, were snipping off any men on the deck of the main warship and it's supporting vessels. The casualties were rising for both sides, and the marines were beginning to get the idea that the fishermen and their deadly aim were just as challenging as the Devil Fruit users stumbling through the trees out of sight.

Ace broke out of the trees for a second to witness the main warship fire a volley at the shore, grimacing as the shots landed cleanly and disintegrated the wall of vines and much of the cover Bleu's men had been using. He could see, from this distance, all that was going on. He could see Violet and Mistral farther up in the village, tending to the worst of the wounded men. He could see Bleu standing upon an overturned pile of rubble that had once been a boat, one hand holding a gun and firing shots out into the bay, other hand hanging limply at his side, stained red with blood.

With an angry snarl the villagers would never hear over the sound of their own fight, Ace pulled his fist back and propelled the flames that festered inside of his body outwards. The flash of fire consumed three ships and reached the canvas sails of a fourth lightly armed corvette. One of the ships was the leading warship, and the powder magazine must have received enough of a spark to set off a chain of events, the ship exploding into a blinding white light. Bits of flaming wood and dismembered bodies rained down into the bay, and Ace thought he could hear a cheer rise up from the fishermen on the shore, but the explosion had momentarily deafened his ears.

He grit his teeth triumphantly, and then turned back to Jaunis and Lazue who had both stopped to watch him go at it. While Jaunis' eyes held a bit of calm, but grim, satisfaction, Lazue's face showed her disappointment in him and horror quite clearly.

In the heat of the fight, he found himself close to yelling at her to defend his actions, but his attention was quickly diverted back to the fire he'd created that was hungrily consuming everything in sight. Out of the four ships that had gotten hit, he could only see one where the marines on board were sensible enough to jump into the bay to save themselves. The others were burning alive, or already dead, as the debris from the explosion had punched holes in the ships closest to it and set on fire a fifth caravel. A quick count revealed that only four ships were still fighting in full without any damages besides the odd sniper-shot man.

Suddenly, Lazue piped up, "I want to turn myself in and stop this fighting!" Ace gaped at her as she continued, "You should, too, Ace; good people are _dying_ because of us!"

"Girl, this island has had a long standing grudge against the marines. My men are not backing down, even if the marines start to flee. Now get over here, the both of ya, and come see this," Jaunis called, her voice breaking as the strain of the flight down the beach caught up to her. Jaunis knew her lungs were not what they once were and she was fighting an internal battle that wanted her to sit down and take a breather. Her heart was faltering, and she feared that she was having an attack.

Ace obeyed, pursing his lips rather than exhibiting his frustration vocally. Lazue turned away from him and focussed on the older woman several feet higher up on a slope. Both climbed up to Jaunis, one more reluctantly than the other, and they looked past her outstretched arm, seeing they had run far enough away from the base of the village that they were horizontal with the line of ships in the bay. Somehow, adrenaline pumping, they had run down the crescent shape of the bay and were close to a ship at the far end of the line that was without damage and still firing chainshot towards the shore.

Ace raised a fist to take out this ship as well, ignoring Lazue's verbal protests, only to feel something slither around his arm and yank his hand down to his side again. He threw a questioning look towards Jaunis.

"You're still escaping this place, aren't you?" she asked with heavy lidded eyes. Cold was seeping in through her tired body and she felt in need of a deep slumber, preferably in a warm place. "I can get you two over to that ship, but the rest you will have to manage yourselves."

"H-how are you going to get us all the way over there?" Lazue howled, her voice wavering as she looked out across the bay. The nearest ship, the one Jaunis was thinking might be ripe for the taking, was perhaps a hundred and forty feet away from their position amongst the trees that hid them from sight.

Ace re-shouldered the bag, tying the long strap around his arm so he wouldn't lose it. Then he brusquely picked up Lazue into his arms by knocking her trembling legs out from under her and hoisted her up onto his other shoulder, adjacent the packsack. "Okay, we're ready," he said amid Lazue's frantic screaming for Ace to put her back on safe ground.

Jaunis laughed weakly at the sight before making a series of exaggerated hand movements that culminated in a legion of vines wrapping themselves around Ace and Lazue. The vines tightened and joined together in hundreds of little knots. Much to Ace's mounting uncertainty that built more and more by the second as he realized any stray spark from him would ruin Jaunis' plan, the vines began to lift them up into the air.

Both felt direly unprepared, but Jaunis was not about to wait around for them to adjust. Her hands flicked and Ace soon lost sight of her.

The flora hurled them out into the bay. Ace was sure he'd gone deaf in one ear for sure with Lazue's ear-splitting shriek, which rivalled the explosion of the warship, but the vines were still wrapped around them. After a long trip through the thin air above the bay, the vines gave a final cushioning pull backwards and Ace's feet hit the deck of the appointed ship, jarring him almost to the point of toppling over.

The vegetation retreated over the gunwale as Ace hurried to put Lazue down. The girl took one haggard step out of his arms and fell to the deck, knees too weak to hold her upright. All around Ace the crewmen on the ship, a tiny caravel, were shocked and pointing guns in his general direction. Without waiting for commands from the captain, the marines fired on Ace, bullets ripping through his skin and out the other side.

The attacks were harmless, but Ace was immediately glad that Lazue had fortuitously fallen down as the volume of bullets would have killed her instantly.

"Stay down!" Ace cried to Lazue as he let loose a volley of his own attacks, torching the officers in his way. After the initial attack that was meant to stun more than destroy, Ace tossed down the bag of belongings and went to work on the rest of the crew that had turned their attention to the intruders.

He fought using hand-to-hand combat, making quick work of the enemy and tossing most of the men overboard without life-threatening injuries. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Lazue had backed herself against the ship's main mast and was clutching the bag of belongings to her chest as if they would protect her from a stray bullet. Her ignorance of the situation baffled him.

A man came up behind Ace with a sword and, though he knew the man was there, he didn't bother to avoid the swipe of the blade through his midsection. He looked down his stomach to see the glittering silver of the blade protruding from it and then watched curiously as the blade fell through his hip and clattered to the ground. He turned and saw the naval officer clutching his chest, uniform bunching around his hands, the whites of his eyes showing, before toppling to the deck with a soft _thump_. Dead before impact.

For a second, Ace though he must have expelled a fire bullet without realizing it. Then he heard Lazue's anguished crying and turned back to her in time to see her shove her hands away from her as if they had become horrendously disfigured.

She had killed that man, not him.

Ace re-focussed his mind on the battle, taking out the remainder of the crew as they reached the upper deck. Once the last of the gun crew from the deck below was over the side of the ship, Ace ran over to the side facing the remaining ships in the bay and, without checking to see if Lazue was watching, punched a gaping wound into the marines' formation. The ship closest to their caravel was completely obliterated and the hole created allowed Ace to see that his fire had reached the eighth ship farthest from their position, lighting it up.

Amid explosions and gunfire as cannons rejected their loads and killed their gun crews, Ace re-rigged the damaged foresail, cut lines that led to the anchors that kept the ship in position, and managed to turn the caravel around using the tiller at the back of the boat and some creatively spewed fire. All the while, Lazue hung helpless over the gunwale, throwing up despite having nothing to eat this morning.

The wind, surprisingly, blew in their favour, pushing them out to sea. As Lazue lifted her head slightly, she caught sight of Jaunis sitting along the cliff that her vines had thrown them off of, propped up against a tree. The old woman was grinning as she slid down into a sitting position against the tree's roots, and Lazue's keen eyes caught the slight movement of heavy eyelids closing. With a strangled cry that caught Ace's attention, Lazue realized that the woman had passed. Amid all of the heartbeats thudding in her mind, there was one she had been paying particular attention too, and that one had just vanished.

That sprint had killed her, and then to use her powers so generously… Lazue felt even sicker than before, but found she could do nothing but press her head against the wooden railing and let her tears fall to the deck.

Eventually, Ace came and forcibly hauled her to her feet, taking her below deck to the berth. It was filled with nautical and personal possessions, and once again Lazue felt sick at the thought that all of the men who'd manned the caravel were sacrificed so that only two people could get out of there alive. Two criminals at that.

Ace set her down against the sloped wall of the ship and left her there, going back above deck to clear off the bodies. Those that he hadn't killed himself or thrown overboard with minor wounds had been killed by stray bullets and mistakes that comrades sometimes make in the middle of a fray. Apart from a few burns there wasn't much of his doing left on deck as evidence.

He found one man alive near the bow, clutching his severely wounded arm, and muttering profanities and apologies to the deck of the ship. The man didn't notice Ace's presence until the pirate had snuck around behind him and picked up the man by the undersides of arms. Then he dragged the man who thrashed only weakly and deposited him in one of the lifeboats hanging off the side of the caravel. He cut the ties with a bit of sharp-tongued flame and watched as the man floated off, back towards the fire that burned brightly in the harbour.

He didn't have time to deal with anyone else but Lazue. But, for some reason, he couldn't allow himself to aimlessly kill someone. The shirt that still clung to his chest and back was ripped and bloodied, not his with his own blood. With a grunt Ace tore it off and threw it over the edge as a sacrifice to the ocean.

Then he went down into the berth and found a very shaky Lazue, taking her into his arms and holding her tightly, even though she made it clear she wished to be left alone.


	16. Chapter XVI

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* * *

><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter XVI_

* * *

><p>It took a week of sailing listlessly, guided by a log pose Ace had found stashed amongst the belongings of others, to get Lazue to speak to him again.<p>

When she did, over a chaste breakfast of bread and cheese they had found in a storeroom, Ace nearly swallowed a lung out of shock.

"How many people usually crew a warship, Ace?" Lazue asked quietly that one morning. She still had bloodshot eyes and Ace knew she cried at night when he was above deck and keeping watch. He had thought her useless, weak tears would annoy him after a while, but found instead that he simply felt empty whenever he heard her trying to stifle a sob.

At first, Ace didn't want to answer her question, but then he realized that he owed Lazue a reply, just as he owed her many things for dragging her into this mess. Plus, he didn't want to have to wait _another_ week for her to return to speaking to him again. Lately her company as a silent crewmate had been wearing on him. Still, he could hardly make the words form on his lips. "On a ship that size, several…" he trailed off, feeling his own stomach flop. Perhaps he should have remained silent.

"Several what?" she rasped insistently.

"Several hundred."

"That's a lot of lives," she continued solemnly, looking down at the piece of bread in her hands.

"It takes a lot of people to man cannons," Ace acknowledged, thinking about how the _Moby Dick_ fought distance battles with other ships. It seemed so long ago that he had walked the deck of that massive vessel and he felt a stab in his chest as he realized he would give anything to go back. But he didn't know exactly where the mighty ship was at the moment. Hell, he didn't even know where _they_ were, only that they were floating around on the first half of the Grand Line in a marine vessel.

Not the best ship to be looking for a pirate crew with.

"Jaunis died, you know," Lazue piped up suddenly after falling silent for a few minutes. She recalled the heartbeats of that woman becoming weaker and weaker as they had progressed down the island's beach. "I saw her go into a deep sleep and I know she passed. I just _know_."

"She told me she had a weak heart. She was old," Ace said softly. He knew he was being too blunt, too callous, but somehow he found he couldn't express himself in any other way at the moment. Sure, he was fairly certain they were related by blood, but he never knew her the way he knew… others. Like Sabo. His face never failed to pop into his thoughts whenever he felt the sting of death.

"I never thanked her. _We_ never thanked her."

"Somehow, I doubt she would've cared. She probably died happy knowing you took her damn book."

"It is not a damn book," Lazue snapped, her eyes lifting to meet with Ace's as he stared back evenly at her. "It's an important encyclopedia and when you were in your mother's room she told me it was her life's work. All that she is worth. She told me some other stuff too, but I doubt any of _that_ applies now, ass."

"What did she tell you?" Ace wondered, feeling his curiosity and anger rising at the same time. A little bit of the old, hardened Lazue had shone through for a moment and he found himself annoyed by her temper but at the same time much relieved.

"None of it matters. You're just a pirate, so what would you know about…about…"

"About what?" Ace snapped, beginning to feel steam peeling off his skin. _Just a pirate_? What the hell kind of a statement was that? She had no right to–

"Forget it. Honestly, just forget it. It wasn't important," she whispered, suddenly becoming sullen and teary-eyed like she'd been for a solid week now. She began to turn her body away, and Ace felt himself stiffen and place his palms on the table. "Well, at least it isn't important to _you_."

For some reason, Ace found himself standing up when Lazue excused herself and taking off after her. Before she could exit the kitchen area, he had his arms wrapped around her and was pulling her into his chest.

"I'm sorry, I really am. For a bunch of things that sorry doesn't really cut it for."

"You know what? It's not even you. It's me thinking too much. I just can't help but wonder if that man I killed had a wife and children," Lazue sobbed, her tears touching Ace's bare skin and sliding down his chest like sweat.

"I was one of those children that never had a family, and the only person I did have was brutally _killed_," she continued, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I know what those children will feel when they find out their loved one's gone. But you probably don't go to bed at night and think of these things…you probably wouldn't have made it as a pirate if you did."

He held her tighter as she trembled. He knew what he dreamed of, and it wasn't the people that had gotten in the way of his fists or his knife. It was usually only a few people, and one in particular stood out starkly with blond hair that always lit up the darkness he had become accustomed to as a child. "I know what it feels like to lose someone close to you.

She looked up at him and pulled back to see his face, but his eyes were distant.

"I lost my brother and it still haunts me at night sometimes, just before I fall asleep and again when I wake up. I swear, sometimes I hear his voice calling for me, because he always used to do that in the mornings when we met up to start the day. It scares me, okay, that I'll admit. But at the same time I know that life goes on, and one has to protect what lies in the future rather than in the past. I've sworn to protect my other little brother to the best of my abilities, and I know that would make the brother I lost proud. It's all I can do."

"I just hate mindless killing. That's how the person closest to me died. And now I'm one of those murderers. I hate that so, _so _much." Ace could hear the self-hate dripping from her lips like viscous poison. He could relate, having felt the venom inside of him twist his emotions until he was sure he was worthless and just poisoning the people around him.

"As harsh as this is going to sound, it was either that man or you," said Ace firmly, releasing Lazue from his grip. He knew she would try to forsake his arms and made it easier for her to get away, should she choose to leave him in favour of the berth and its solitude. "And he wouldn't have hesitated to take your life if his own was at risk, which it was."

"I know that. But at the same time I know I could've brought that man back…and maybe you could've tossed him overboard so he had a chance to live. And we would never encounter him again, and he would go back to his wife or children, or whatever." Lazue took a great ragged breath, and then continued. "I did it before; when we were on that island where I first ate my Devil Fruit. I brought an animal back to life. I'm sure I could've figured out how to breathe life into that man, too."

With some confusion, Ace reached out his hands and rested his palms on her shoulders. He held her away at arm's length to scrutinize her, taking in her sincere stare and the teardrops slinking down her face. "Sometimes it's best to just let things be."

Her chest heaved a great breath and she shuddered. Suddenly his gaze was slipping downwards and he began noticing things about Lazue that he knew he ought to slap himself for later. Quickly he rushed to think of something that would take his mind off of the inappropriate thoughts that were clouding it. "Uh, want to fish now? It might cheer you up."

He realized too late; that was the worst thing to offer her.

"Ace, you know I hate–"

"Forget I just said that, I wasn't thinking. I'm not very awake yet," Ace interrupted, feeling a blush tint his ears at making such a stupid mistake. It was her feminine charms doing things to him. "Um, but I'm going to go fish because our food supplies are low and if you want to come…well, that's fine by me."

Lazue shook her head, but for a second or two she smiled at him, since he really did try his best to cheer her up using the only methods he knew.

She left him to his fishing, going below deck to the little hammock strung up between two beams she had taken to sleeping in. Across the relatively wide space that was the berth another hammock was set up, though Ace rarely slept in it, instead preferring to sleep out on deck under the sun during the day or near the tiller should anything happen that might jeopardize the course the log pose was leading them on.

Occasionally she wondered where they would end up, but the destination hardly seemed important anymore.

She grabbed the little book of letters that Ace hadn't touched since Jaunis had handed them off to her. She had been reading the letters diligently, and found that she couldn't help but mentally befriend the man who'd written them to his lover. It was easy to read between the lines and find the love that was stashed there to the point of overflowing, even though it was clear the man had a crude way of saying things.

After reading through many of the letters she doubted she'd be surprised by any of their content, but a few nights ago she'd come across something she hadn't expected.

It was a letter, like every other, but it wasn't just any old letter from Gol D. Roger. No, it was an _unsent_ letter, one tucked into a blank envelope. A letter from Rouge, the lover whom all of the other letters were addressed to.

She had coined telling Ace about this particular letter, but after reading it once, twice, and thrice, she decided it would be better to keep it inside its envelope. This letter was clearly Rouge's last, detailing how she was in utter pain from keeping her son inside her womb, and telling Roger that she loved him… Her decision to keep the letter a secret stemmed from the date on the top of the paper, a date which she knew from conversations she'd overheard in her old bar was long after Roger's death, as though she were writing to him in heaven. Or hell. Wherever the Pirate King had gone.

This brought her full circle to thinking about Ace. And the fact that he was the Pirate King's _son_. It had taken a while to sink in, and when it did she found that she either didn't care as much as she knew she should or simply couldn't believe it despite all of the evidence she held in her hands.

Suddenly, something struck her that had eluded her until now. She had to force herself to bite back a wry laugh as she remembered something she once said to Ace, when their whole chaotic journey was just beginning. _"What kind of devil spawned you?" _she had asked him. Back then she faintly remembered him giving her a sort of knowing smile and, thinking back on that smile, she realized that what she had said to him must have cut him deeper than he had ever let on.

She wanted to apologize, run up on deck and embrace him from behind and plead for his forgiveness. After all, he always got stuck with the brunt of the situation and bore all the burdens. She was useless in war, she cried and moaned about her misfortunes, and ultimately she had little to pity herself with compared to the pain that he must have felt as a child. Just knowing that he was the son of a man who most condemned to hell must have made his life hard to live.

She fingered the stack of letters stuck within Rouge's little black book. From the sounds of things, Roger had loved the people around him with everything he had. Ace, however, fully rejected the man, though he'd never met him. She couldn't help but wonder, _If the Pirate King hadn't died, and had raised his son, what kind of a person would Ace be right now? Would he be happier?_

A trip above deck showed Ace petting the head of a carrier seagull and feeding it a tiny fish that wouldn't be worth cleaning. He looked happy enough, snickering as the bird picked away at it. But she knew the faces people wore often didn't accurately portray what they were really feeling beneath the surface of their skin.

"Ace…" Lazue trailed off, unsure of what she wanted to tell him, to ask him, to _say _to him.

His eyes were bright and he watched the gull fly off with a cheery squawk. "That little guy delivered today's paper and a letter for you. I honestly can't believe he found us. And get this – I made a trade for a log pose with him for only a few fish!"

She would have laughed, but the letter in Ace's hand held her entire body frozen. He noticed her silence and followed her stare.

"I don't know who this is from…" he muttered as he strode forward and placed the envelope into her shaking hands.

She tore open the letter, sitting down on the deck to shelter the paper from the wind. She did not want something so precious, so easily destroyed, to be taken by the ocean winds. She thumbed the folded paper open and read voraciously while Ace watched, jitters working their way up his spine at her odd reaction.

When she finished, a single tear flowed down her cheek, the wind snatching it away. She put the letter back into its envelope and tucked it safely into the folds of her shirt. Then she wiped her eyes and made a silent vow to really try to curb her emotions.

Ace's stare was inquisitive. "What was that about?" he asked tentatively.

"It was nothing that I didn't already assume," she replied, her expression sullen. "Do you remember back on my home island, on the day we had to leave, Tool visited while I was asleep? That note Tool wrote before we left the island – he said he'd try to clear my name while we were gone. He said he'd try and make me out to be a hostage you'd taken, no offence." Ace shrugged, not really caring as she'd suspected. "He wrote that he'd send a carrier seagull with news of how he's doing."

Ace bowed his head. "I suppose he hadn't the slightest stroke of luck doing that."

She shook her head. "No, the truth is there was a first letter he sent, but I realize now we never got it. He managed to clear my name. I could have gone back home with the marines as a recovered hostage. But instead…"

"Oh. _Shit_."

"Yeah," she laughed, "instead I went and escaped with you, and this letter to me was just written, probably the second Tool found out about Matanza Island from the marines he was trying to coerce into freeing me. He said there's really no hope for me now – that I am destined to live as an outlaw."

He stared at her and she stared back. Then she walked up and pushed the brim of his hat upwards just a smidgen with a finger. "You know," she said, "now you're going to have to teach me how to live like a scoundrel."

He didn't laugh.

She adverted her eyes and tried not to let her face flush with nervousness. Her adventure had been a temporary blip in his life, this she understood. She knew it would be only a matter of time before he'd find her a safe place on land, away from people that had condemned her. Still, she could hardly believe that this was the moment she would know for certain what kind of a burden she was to him.

She asked the question she thought she'd never asked, and hoped for the answer she thought she'd never hope for. She placed her hands on his freckled cheeks and forced the words out. "If it's not too much trouble, can I keep sailing with you, for as long as you choose the open sea?"

He knew he should probably say no and that he'd find her a nice, quiet island on which she could live out her days on dry land, because she'd probably like that better than the sea. He knew he ought to keep his hormones from influencing any decisions. He knew he really should have removed her hands from his cheeks, but they were just so warm and soft and oddly comforting that he really didn't want to expend the energy of pushing her away.

He wanted her closer, if anything. He wanted her to keep sailing with him. And, being as ruled by emotions as he usually was, he said, "Okay. We were going to Whitebeard anyway. I think he'll accept you. He accepted me, and I've never been accepted in my life, except maybe by my brothers…"

He trailed off as he realized he was about to go on a ramble. Lazue wasn't really listening anyway; she had moved into him, wrapping her arms around his neck. An embrace, he noted numbly. Not many people had hugged him before, and certainly no woman had ever held him like that, so trusting of him not to do her any harm.

Slowly, he wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her back gently as he wondered if she was still in pain from their last voyage. She didn't protest or cry out as he held her, rather she tightened her grip on him, burying her face into his neck to smell the salty spray of the sea and his sweat from being under the hot sun all morning. If freedom had a definitive aroma, she knew she smelt it oozing out of Ace's pores.

As she let go and drew back, he ran the pads of his fingers down her sides, feeling the warmth of her skin under her thin dress. She was wearing the old blue sundress again, and he couldn't help but notice the way it hung off her curves, billowing away from her body to clench the fabric in all the places that caught his attention.

"You're staring," she stated.

"I know."

He continued to indulge himself. She already had a fair idea of his feelings, so he figured he wouldn't bother to try and hide them. There was no point.

Eventually, she brought her hand up to touch his cheek, pushing his head to the side so he stared out the starboard side. He blinked upon feeling her soft skin so firm on his face, but ultimately he was staring at what lay in the distance where water met sky. In between those two blues was a tiny inkling of green rising up out of the waves to meet the clouds.

"Island," she said simply. She removed her hand from his face and went below deck, leaving him to his musings and maneuverings.

* * *

><p>They docked inside the island's bay with the sun setting behind them. While Ace was content to stay on the ship for the night, Lazue insisted that they camp out on land, which didn't move in swells. After such a dreary sea voyage, Ace felt obligated to give in to the woman's demands. He didn't mind much; he was hungry and thought that maybe they'd find something meaty to eat on this island. It looked big enough for substantial wildlife, and it certainly didn't appear to be populated by humans, so tavern food was not on the menu.<p>

After they built up a sort of hut – Lazue trying her best to help and making it look more appealing than Ace's solo hackney job from before – Ace went off to try and find food. There was still food on the ship they'd stolen, but Ace's bottomless gut was rapidly devouring their stock. What they had for rations Lazue had brought up to their camp, and while Ace hunted, she cooked what she could over a fire he'd created for her.

Lazue was surprised when, an hour later, Ace came back with relatively clean, bloodless cuts from some large animal. To her questioning eyes that sparkled in the nearly set sunlight he said, "I found a stream of clear water that rushes out over a waterfall a ways from here."

"Oh, then I'm certainly washing up later," Lazue said. "Being on that ship has gotten me so dirty. And the bandages on my back…"

Ace's eyes widened and he felt like slapping his forehead, refraining from doing so only because his hands were full. He had forgotten about those in the excitement of the past few days. "Those haven't been changed in a while. Your wound probably needs to be washed really badly."

Lazue smiled sheepishly. "I've been changing the bandages myself. Or at least trying to. But I don't really know what my back looks like. Those marines don't carry around mirrors on their vessels."

Ace set the beast cooking, mulling this over. Soon they both ate, Ace exchanging droll, but mindful chatter that kept Lazue entertained, especially when he talked with his mouth full of food. He fell asleep once, slouching against Lazue's body, and she found herself pinned momentarily by his weight. But she wasn't angry or even the faintest bit annoyed; merely amused by his antics, no matter how strange they were.

She finished eating after she heaved Ace's body off of her, rolling him onto the warm grass. They'd happened upon a summer island and even as night fell it was still warm enough to bring beads of sweat to her forehead. Having a man made of fire pin her down accidentally was amusing, sure, but she was hotter than ever before. She was really craving a dip in the stream Ace had mentioned.

She waited a while, hoping he would awaken quickly, but she grew so hot that she decided to head off on her own. She gathered some of her things, tried her best to shake Ace awake one last time, and then froze as her eyes fell on his dagger.

Lazue left it on his waist. She wouldn't need it, she figured.

Off she went, crashing though the trees. She hadn't taken any of the Sea Spectrum in the morning, since Ace's heartbeat didn't pound restlessly in her mind, so she could hear the pitter-patter of little heartbeats in her head now, many millions of them. The small creatures didn't bother her as much, as they were barely detectable on their own. Together, they just formed a pleasing hum. A tiny orchestra of drumbeats that she tried to along with.

* * *

><p>Ace woke up and rubbed his eyes, blinking at the darkness and trying to remember what he had been doing before sleepiness struck. The fire had dimmed and Lazue was nowhere in sight. He got to his feet, stretching out with his arms high above his head. His knuckles cracked. His knees were stiff. He limped over to their little shanty, wishing to check up on her, for he believed she had grown weary from staying up and waiting for him to regain consciousness.<p>

She wasn't there. His brow furrowed and he called out her name into the night. "Lazue?" Only crickets answered him. He tried again. "Lazue?"

Nothing. He became flustered and stuffed his thumbs into his belt loops, then scanned around his body for clues, lighting himself up so he could search the area. At last he found a beaten down path and some long pieces of grass that had recently seen the tread of feet. He followed, recognizing the path as the one he had made when going to clean the beast he'd caught earlier. The brush became thinner as he approached the trickling sound of water, and he stepped out from the densest of the trees to look about him, eyes frantically turning over each shadow to judge its shape.

At last he found her bathing in the stream, a silhouette in the moonlight.

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><p><strong>A.N.:<strong> It's still Wednesday where I live, but I'm sorry to those who are on Thursday at this time. Thank you for bearing with me! Also, your reviews are most welcome :D

**Advanced warning**: The next chapter contains sexual content and isn't exactly suitable for the T rating I've given this story. However, it can be skipped if desired, and the story picked up again halfway through the next chapter at a break. I'll give more details at the beginning of the next chapter when it's posted.


	17. Chapter XVII

**A.N.: **Warning – this chapter is rated M for mature, at least during first half. The second half of the chapter, indicated by a line break, is totally safe to read and if you don't want to read the first half please skip to the middle.

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><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter XVII_

* * *

><p>The ripples of water sparkled in the light cast by the moon, reflecting greys and silvers all around Ace. He crept down into the reeds to the water's edge, into the open, watching what had captured his ardent affections for a while now.<p>

She wore nothing but the dapple of moonlight on her pale skin. It took his breath from his lungs and he heaved when he found himself without air, then he moved forward, convinced of seeing an apparition rather than a real person. Stranger things had happened on the Grand Line.

He barely stopped himself from mouthing the word 'ghost,' though his uncertainty was renewed when she brushed her shimmering hair from her shoulders. Her almost unearthly visage caught his mind in falsities. With a low grunt at his own foolishness and, to an extent, his boyishness, Ace stripped off his shorts. That were the only clothing he was wearing in the summer heat, far away from civilization. The water beckoned for him, oddly enough. Then he realized that it wasn't the water calling him forth, but rather Lazue who silently called out to him, her back exposed for his viewing. He could see the scars that ran the length of her, from shoulder to hip, but unless he were closer, he wouldn't be able to gauge the state of her wounds accurately.

The cool water, as he crept into the stream, took him out of his stupor. He was surprised that he was so easily distracted and had made himself nude and with purpose. Lazue herself was up to her navel in water, but no more, knowing well the risks that could come of overindulgence. She moved gently against the waves that undulated with the breeze, swaying with the wind.

The ripples Ace made as he waded up alerted her to his presence. Though she couldn't hear his heartbeat, she had been listening to the barely audible thumps of frogs and insects and other small life fade away. Ace's presence had silenced the world and for the silence Lazue was grateful. So indebted to him as she was, she didn't protest when his hands found her back and smoothed over the rough, chapped skin.

He trailed his fingers down her spine, breaking away only as his fingertips reached the division of her buttocks that lay under the water's surface. Cupping his hands, he gathered up the smooth liquid in his hands and raised it up to her shoulders, letting it run down the length of her back and wash away any dirt and grime. Again and again he repeated his actions, occasionally rubbing the water into the broken skin, hoping to get under the wounds and cleanse Lazue from the inside out.

He was gentle with her and above all courteous, never allowing his eyes to stray from her back. When he was finished his task, he brushed his fingers through Lazue's hair, allowing himself that luxury, then turned to climb out of the stream. Lazue heard him backing up, turning around, and before he could exit the stream altogether, she wrapped her arms around his thick midsection.

Pressing herself against him, she felt with her arms the hurried intake of breath and sudden influx of heat that told of his surprise. She clenched him closer, letting herself snuggle up to his perpetually warm body. Her breasts pushed against the area beneath his shoulder blades, hardened nipples softening under the warm caress of his rough skin.

"That felt nice," she mused as she laid her cheek against the back of his neck. "You should give up pirating and do back massages for a living. You're surprisingly gentle."

"I was worried when you took off like that," he said seriously, choosing to ignore her playful comment. He was still a little irritated at finding her sleeping spot empty. "You should have waited until I woke up."

"I'm not helpless all the time, Ace," she replied, lifting her head to glare up at him. She liked knowing that he had been worried, though; it brought her an odd satisfaction, made her feel warm inside just thinking about what must have gone through his head when he discovered her absence. "Besides, you were dead asleep. I wasn't sure if you were going to wake up today, tomorrow, or next week."

As she spoke, he moved back against her body slowly, getting closer to the sound of her voice. His lower body found hers, moulding into her stomach and places lower than that. He could feel her every breath now, light and sensual against him. It was filling him with heat, but he wasn't on fire. He had that much control, perhaps even mastery, of his Devil Fruit.

Lazue began to detangle herself from him, drawing backwards to allow him free reign to go where he pleased. After all, he _was_ a pirate, and he wouldn't take kindly to being held down. But, as she stepped away, she found him turning, his dark eyes searching for hers, and opening his arms to encase her in them. The sudden appearance of his shoulder against her face muffled an already quiet whimper of surprise. Something firm pressed against her inner thigh, and she knew instantly what he wanted before the words were spoken in her ear.

"Would you consider it?" he whispered, knowing she fully understood what he was asking.

Those simple words enflamed Lazue, hanging in the air like wispy smoke that quickly intoxicated her.

His smile was hesitant, and she realized he wasn't going to pressure her to even answer him. But she wanted to answer him, and she did. "I don't think I need to _consider_ it," she whispered back, his calloused hands finding her battered back to give her a comforting rub. She placed her hand over where his heart should have throbbed and found a speedy pulsation that her abilities could never detect.

He gathered her up into his arms, hands supporting her buttocks and lifting her out of the water. She wrapped her arms around his neck, but the added leverage he'd given her smothered his face in her chest. He made some muffled apology that was hardly necessary and more instinctual while she stifled a laugh using the dark mop of hair on Ace's head. However, it burst out of her as Ace set off, kicking up water and taking them away from the stream.

They crashed through the bushes, Lazue laughing away as Ace tripped and stumbled. After a bit he was joining in her laughter with his own, and eventually they made it without much incident back to their little fort.

Ace's heat, coupled with the warm air, had them both dry as they crawled inside on their hands and knees. Lazue had found some soft blankets in the captain's cabin on the marine ship, and she'd brought them up to lie down as a soft mattress. Now they tumbled around in them, Ace's hands tickling all over her skin, feeling her quiver and giggle under him. She was completely open to him, not at all shy about her state of undress, and Ace let himself enjoy her dips and curves, making sure she knew he was appreciating them by lowering himself and placing small kisses on her body.

At last she grabbed a fistful of his dark ebony locks and steadied him, her eyes boring into his. She panted slightly, her heart beating as he dipped his face down to hers, kissing first her cheek and then her full, parted lips. He ghosted over her skin, letting her set the pace for this encounter.

"It's scary how much you've got control of me," Ace stated, his eyes raking over her body.

Lazue gazed back evenly at him. "You scare me, too. But it's not a bad kind of scary, if you know what I'm saying."

"Yeah. I do."

Ace finally allowed himself to run his hands over Lazue's breasts and silently marvelled at their softness. Lazue shivered violently as his calloused thumbs brushed over her nipples and around the dark pink skin of her areolas.

"Sorry, sailor's hands," Ace lamented with a weak smile, drawing back lest he scratch her with the abrasive pads of his fingers.

Swallowing thickly, Lazue admitted, "They're a man's hands. I like them a lot." He grinned and lightly kissed her once more, continuing to rub circles with his thumbs around the sensitive spots he found all down her chest.

She arched her back up at the same time she pulled him down to deepen their connection. He groaned upon feeling her naked body wriggling against his chest. He was painfully erect, and he couldn't even move his lower body along hers to create a lovely friction because she'd somehow entwined herself around his lower regions with her long legs.

The only thing he could do was continue kissing her, trailing his lips down her chin, then her neck, then on down her chest. He grasped her breasts, one in each hand, then gave them a tiny squeeze to warn her that he wouldn't always be placid. With that he released her to pull back and gauge her reaction.

Her eyes were half-lidded and her cheeks were flushed in the darkness. The tips of his hair burned just brightly enough to cast a glow over her skin, and he stopped to catch his breath and admire her for a few minutes. Then he lit the tips of his fingers and held them up between them, encouraging her to touch close to the flames on the tips.

"I won't burn you," Ace said confidently. "So long as I can dispel the heat into something else, like the earth."

"I was never worried about you burning me," Lazue replied.

Something in Ace lurched, and all at once a flash of warmth ripped through him that he quickly redirected so its power was absorbed by the ground beneath them. He supposed it was the trust in him Lazue was so clearly exhibiting that had taken him somewhat off-guard. Yet he knew he shouldn't be surprised. Had Lazue not felt he was trustworthy she would have never allowed him to so much as touch her back in the stream.

"Do you know what you're doing?" she whispered as his arousal brushed against her most sensitive place. He shifted again, enjoying the fiery sensation that coursed through him, entirely removed and different from his abilities. She had him so hot and bothered that not even a fall into the ocean would sink him.

However, he was still apprehensive about the fact that they were jumping into such an act without ever talking about it. Every one-night stand he'd walked into had begun with some sort of discussion, and often ground rules were set. He didn't know what to expect with her, or what she expected of him. But he supposed that was all part of the fun.

Still, he thought it best to warn her and let her make the final decision. "I have had other women before," he admitted softly. Lazue grimaced to herself and looked away.

"I'm not exactly a virgin either, so sorry if you were expecting to take my purity away, Mr. Pirate."

He surprised himself by chuckling and wondering who the hell had managed to bed _her_. Then he decided it hardly mattered and he tucked some of the blanket around her head so she was perfectly cushioned and unable to do much but look up at him. "I don't care. Besides, the key word there was _pirate_. I'm no prissy noble."

She snorted, running a hand down his chest to glide across his muscles, feeling his chest constrict and twitch. Ace's body was really too easy to read. "Okay, Mr. Pirate, I think you'll like me then." She reached his base and ran her sinewy fingers down his length, smiling as he groaned and pushed into her hand, eager to get going.

She teased him with strokes that stoked his flames, pushing him along slowly until he decided he'd had enough and reached down to pull her away from him. With a startling roughness, he pinned her hands above her head, a dark smile bidding her to keep them there while he took his turn.

He buried his nose in her hair, filled his lungs with her scent, and then crawled down her body until he had grasped her hips in his hands. He rubbed circles into her abdomen, planting the occasionally kiss where she shivered with anticipation. Soon, the explorer couldn't help himself. He moved his hands off down her thighs and pressed his cheek into her, spreading her legs as he did so.

"_Ace_. Don't you dare go th –_ahh_!"

Lazue moaned as he licked her experimentally, breathing hot air over her skin. Her body rippled and he continued pawing at her. As he lapped up what glistened between her soft folds, he couldn't help but wish to suck on the little nub that swelled up in response to his tongue's intrusion. He wanted to see her flare up.

She squirmed though, making it impossible to fully submerge himself in her heat, so he ran his hands up her thighs, pressing the tips of his fingers firmly into her hips to keep her snug in place. A throaty groan was brought forth from her lips when he sucked on that little reddened nub that held him so entranced. She grew wetter and wetter, creating a little soaked spot on some fabric that rested just below the chasm of her legs.

Fingers in his hair, gripping his scalp painfully, told Ace that it was time to move on before Lazue lost it to him. He pulled back, concentrating on her flushed face as she panted away, eyes closed and chin up. He waited until he had her attention, for she looked up at him the moment he stopped giving her the pleasure she craved, then he raised two fingers and a smile. She shuddered, expecting what was to come and glad for the warning.

He dove those two fingers into the slick depths of her being, wriggling them around easily, and curling them upwards towards her belly. With his other hand he stroked himself, squeezing out a few beads of his essence so eager to leave him. While he did this, he let his lips linger on her thigh, kissing her and lightly nipping to see if she would make more noises for him. She did, but there was a certain stifled quality to them that intrigued him. He trailed his tongue inwards and gave her a few quick kisses to a more sensitive area, and was rewarded with a low moan that hadn't been muffled. But he knew it would take something a bit harsher, as the tiny noises she was making weren't nearly enough for him. They weren't _desperate _enough for him.

"I don't need much preparing, Ace," she panted. She sat up halfway, reaching for him, then tugged him towards her center. He nodded let go of his thoughts momentarily and pushed her down again with his other hand on her collarbone, gently, positioning himself at her opening and withdrawing his fingers. Instinctively unwilling to waste, he put them in his mouth and licked them clean, relishing in the unfamiliar taste of her. His incessantly hungry stomach announced that he'd indulge in her exotic tastes without hesitating.

She laughed as his stomach growled again and one of his hands left her to clutch at his stomach in a reproving motion. "Too hungry to do this right now?"

He shook his head wildly. "Not a chance. I'm ready when you are." He throbbed against her. She already knew.

With a strangled moan she bucked against him, feeling first few inches of him slipping inside her. He rocked his hips, the rest of him gliding inside her gradually. She groaned as she received him, stretching further than she'd ever been stretched before; she hadn't had someone as thick as he was. There was a dull burning, but she was relaxed enough that it amounted to a pleasuring ache rather than one that was painful.

She clenched around him, sending a bolt of pleasure through Ace that culminated in a carnal grunt as he jerked out of her slightly. The motion made her moan, and she quickly repeated her actions to much the same effect. But a third time was enough for Ace, as he pushed her hips down and withdrew himself until he was just dangling inside her opening, then he thrust in, wanting nothing but to hear her gasp into his shoulder and cry out.

She did. She cried out so loudly in his ear that he thought he'd lost his hearing for a few seconds, oddly reminiscent of the last time she'd screamed in his ear. Then he realized that she had him gripped so tightly that her cheek was smothering the hearing in that ear. Oddly enough, as he grew still in thought, relishing in the tightness of her core, she laughed. It was enough to derail him.

"God, Ace, don't just do that and _stop_! You're such an _ass_."

He chuckled and pried her off of him. As he looked down at her again he started pumping himself into her with tiny strokes that left neither of them sated. She grunted with the agony he insisted upon, and clawed at his back, growing progressively more irritable with his teasing.

"_Ace._ Damn it, would you just do it already? Before I die of heatstroke or dehydration?"

He laughed again, knowing she was joking with the truth to her words the real kicker, his hot breath heating her enflamed cheeks. He rubbed his face against her chest, up over the curve of her breasts, and settled in between them, blowing more warmth into her with a few snaps of heated air from the flame that burned inside of him. He gave her what she wanted, long hard strokes from hilt to tip, but indulged himself in the softness of her breasts, licking and suckling the nipples that grew solid under his tongue.

He grunted when he felt her begin to thrust upwards into him, impaling herself on his full length. It had taken a lot of self-control so far not to lose himself, but now he was beginning to reach that point where he needed gratification lest he go crazy with want. He increased his thrusts, slick sounds piercing the silent night air, punctuated occasionally with one of Lazue's delicious, searing moans that he loved to hear. They rocked together, back and forth, until Lazue began to arch obsessively and then explode with a high-pitched cry, all of her pent up excitement washing over Ace. He was squeezed and held in place by her convulsing muscles, and he rode her out until she slacked against the blankets peacefully, sighing and allowing him to finish without interruption.

He jerked as quickly as he wished, breathing easier with her less tense, but unable to fulfill himself with her so limp beneath him. As if sensing his slight frustration at being kept from orgasm, she returned to kissing his face roughly and clenching him between her, enjoying the grunts he offered up until he came, spilling himself inside her.

She took him without a word, felt his essence enter and mix with hers, and he slumped against the groves of her body as he finished. With a deep, contented sigh he slipped out of her and dragged his fingers through her sweat soaked hair, noticing how the hairs had clumped together and curled into sweaty ringlets. He could only imagine how curly his hair had gotten. Feeling how drenched she was with both her perspiration and his, he couldn't help but grin as the minutes slid by, because they would have to have another dip in the stream together at a later date. It was inevitable, and the thought got him up.

"You're getting hard again," Lazue eventually whispered, stroking the loosely coiled muscles in his back as he lay partially on top of her. He nuzzled into her neck, planting sloppy, wet kisses along the column of her throat.

Then he pulled away and stared straight into her beautiful, half-lidded eyes. "Up for another round, Miss Outlaw?"

"Of course, Mr. Pirate."

* * *

><p>Dawn crept up on Lazue, who awoke feeling unbearably sticky but incredibly content. She shifted a bit, found herself incubated with blankets and a warm body pressing against her back, then sighed. Yes, she was perfectly content.<p>

She hadn't ever imagined a few months ago that she'd go on such an adventure with a man who happened to be a notorious pirate. If any fortune teller had told her that she'd laugh in their face and then stalk off without paying them her hard earned money for their time. It was just so…unbelievable.

Soon she extracted herself from Ace's arms, which had wrapped themselves loosely around her waist. She remembered how he refused to let go of her after they were done the night before, even though she protested that she was hot beyond all belief. That was about when Ace showed her one of his seldom-used talents, his ability to tap into the heat that embedded itself into her skin and extract it from her. She had wished he'd shown her that technique earlier.

Lazue couldn't remember whether she'd punched him for it or not.

She sighed again as she crawled out of her place beside Ace's body, looking down at his peaceful, freckled face. She brushed a few fingers through his messy hair and then over his tattooed bicep, feeling the relaxed muscles that hinted at his abundant strength. She wouldn't have to worry about much when he was around. Nobody could match her Ace.

Her Ace. Now that was a strange thing to think. She found she liked the sound of possession; it gave her greater comfort and a sense of personal satisfaction. She didn't possess many things. She knew that Ace was a pirate, but she also knew he was a genuine sort who would never betray those closest to him, the kind of man she had previously believed a fairy tale character. Of course, Ace was nowhere near perfect, but he was good enough for her and, most importantly, he was real, blissfully asleep right next to her.

She decided to let him continue sleeping a while longer, since they were planning on leaving the island today and continuing onwards. And she knew he would be up all night watching the log pose and making sure they stayed on course. So he would need some extra shut-eye.

She leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead, then staggered to her feet to tidy their camp up and begin the day. She draped one of the blankets around her shoulders, remembered that her clothes were near the stream and catching a chill would ruin her good mood, then exited their little fort.

She blinked in the daylight, yawning as she wriggled her toes and felt the grass shimmy between them, then looked up, expecting the sun to be overhead and the sky blue. A normal day. But as she lifted her head a she was caught in a shadow. A cloud? She squinted, trying to make out the silhouette that seemed much closer than a cloud…

"Oh my God," Lazue breathed, falling back on her bottom as a huge bird loomed over her. The blanket around her shoulders fell a bit, nearly exposing her to the creature's all-too-inquisitive eyes. "What the hell is _that_?"

The bird blocking the path of sunlight blinked down at her, and she could swear it turned its beak up in a smile. Then she watched as that same yellow beak moved, and words poured forth from it.

"So, is this what he's been up to? Shacking up with you?"

Lazue blinked, shaking with disbelief as the bird moved to the left, allowing the bright sunlight to shine through on her. She watched the bird with growing trepidation, noting that it kept a set distance as it settled against a tree, feathers fluffed and oddly misty looking. Now that the sun's shadow wasn't half obscuring it, Lazue noticed that the huge bird was a bluish yellow colour, with twiggy blue feet and gold rings around its half-lidded eyes. She kept her hands at the ready against her bosom, preparing to cross her arms if the bird dared attack her.

"Huh. Are you his little travel buddy that I heard about?"

Lazue blinked owlishly. She still couldn't believe that this avian was speaking intelligent words to her, though its beak was moving perfectly in time to the words she heard spoken. Surely this was all some sort of illusion…had Ace's heat messed with her head?

"Hey, are you mute, girlie?"

"N-no. Just a bit surprised," Lazue answered finally. "Its not every day that a giant, talking bird appears and strikes up a conversation with me."

The bird made some strange snuffling noise. After listening to this for a bit, Lazue came to the conclusion that it was laughing at her.

"Hey, I'm serious. This kind of shit doesn't happen to me every day."

The bird dipped its head, leaning in closer to where she stood. She grasped the sides of the blanket closer around herself, very conscious of the fact that she was naked.

"Well, it's not every day that I get to meet a pretty, conveniently naked girl. What's your name?"

"Lazue," she replied immediately. Then she pursed her lips and furrowed her brow. "Hey, what did you mean when you said 'his little travel buddy?' What are you talking about?"

The bird, shaking out its feathers, which Lazue noticed dilated and undulated as if they were flames, opened its beak to speak. A new voice silenced its words, however.

"Marco! What the hell are you doing all the way over here?"

Lazue turned her head around in time to see Ace crawl out of their fort clade in nothing but a loosely draped blanket that seemed about ready to fall to the ground.

"Honestly, I couldn't have found you at a more awkward moment. I'd love to see this little lady in nothing but a thin blanket, but you? No, I'll pass on that."

Lazue felt herself blush as Ace came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and moulding her back to his chest. He gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze, then said, "Marco. She's _mine,_ so don't even think about it."

"You won't share Miss Lazue?"

"Absolutely not."

The giant bird pretended to pout, which amounted to a drooping of its beak and a widening of its eyes. Ace was unfazed by this, so the bird dropped its antics, straightened its neck, and gazed to the right towards the rising sun. Now that Lazue was taking stalk of her situation, she noticed it was nearly midday. They had slept the entire morning away.

"I can't believe you won't even introduce me properly. You can't be _that _afraid of me stealing your little girl, eh, Fire Fist? She's not even my type, to tell you the utmost truth."

Ace laughed at his own euphemism, shaking his head. He stood up, the blanket still draped precariously around his waist, and stepped between Lazue and the bird. Making an exaggerated hand motion, he introduced them. In what he thought was a 'proper' manner.

"Lazue, this idiot is Marco. He's the first division commander of the Whitebeard pirates and my good friend." Lazue waved a mute greeting, not entirely sure what to think but registering that the Whitebeards were a crew of belching, likely bad-mannered hooligans, all of them hardened criminals that probably weren't as kind as her Ace. The mental image made her shiver.

"Now, what are you doing out here? Shouldn't you be looking after Pops?"

"Yeah, well, coincidentally Pops sent me out to look for you to bring you back to the ship. You've been gone for too long. But I see I'll be ferrying along one more. I'm sure the men without wives will like having her aboard."

_Oh God,_ she thought, _More damned pirates._

* * *

><p><strong>A.N.:<strong> Thank you to everyone who left a review, they're always enjoyable to read. I'll be out of town for the week and so decided to update now instead of waiting until I got back.

Anyways, part two of the story is up next, so see you guys then!


	18. Chapter XVIII

**...**

* * *

><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

PART TWO

_Chapter XVIII_

* * *

><p>At the time she hadn't understood what the bird known as Marco had meant by 'ferrying along'. Now, gripping Ace as tightly as humanly possible, she realized she should have run away when given the chance. There was no such opportunity thousands of feet above the ocean.<p>

"Do you like flying, Lazue?" Ace yelled into her ear, trying to override the noise of air whooshing past them. "It's pretty awesome, isn't it?"

Lazue couldn't reply, too preoccupied with staring forward at Marco's head and the horizon in an attempt to avoid looking down. It was one thing to be sitting on a boat in the middle of a volatile ocean, but quite another to be on a creature sailing over the sea like it was nothing to be afraid of. She was scared out of her mind.

"Lazue, are you okay?" Ace asked next.

She shook her head against his broad chest, then turned so she could hide her face in his shirt. "Does it look like I'm okay?" she muttered into his chest. She didn't think he heard her.

"Hey Lazue, look down! It's the _Moby Dick_ that I was telling you about!"

A part of Lazue wanted to look and see the ship that Ace talked so highly of, but a larger part of her screamed it was suicidal to look now. One glimpse over the side of Marco's back an hour earlier had made her swoon, and she didn't wish to repeat her actions when she knew the consequences.

Just as she began to curse Ace out in her head, she felt the bird start to plummet. Marco's wings were pulling up, and it felt like they were going to stop in midair and drop to the ground belong. Ace crouched lower, sheltering Lazue under his body as he grabbed for a Marco's neck, intending to get a firmer grip on his billowing feathers. Lazue shrieked as they began what felt to her like a free fall that would end with all of them sinking to the depths of hell in the ocean. While most people envisioned a burning, fiery hell, she pictured a hell at the bottom of dark, cold depths.

She could hear Ace laughing as they descended. That ass.

After what felt like minutes at a time falling out of the sky with air rushing past her ears, Lazue finally began to notice Marco evening out and flying straight. She dared a glimpse then, just one, and she peeked out of Ace's arms to see nothing but blue waves, each tipped with white foam. They were dangerously close. She had no time to scream as beams and canvas came into view, and before she knew it their ride was all over and they'd landed on the deck of a massive, full-rigged vessel.

Marco was flat with the wooden planks while Ace gathered Lazue up into his arms. She shook violently, eyes wide but unable to see anything due to a sudden dizzy spell and the adrenaline obscuring her vision. Ace slide off of one of Marco's giant wings as if it were a slide, letting her down on her own two feet even when she clearly needed his support to stand. Finally, when her blurred vision cleared and her breathing was no longer wild and ragged, she began to take in the sights and sounds of the _Moby Dick_.

_Oh God_, she thought, _Pirates are everywhere. And they're all staring._

It was true; the deck was covered with animate bodies, some drinking, some chatting, but all staring with varying degrees of inquisitiveness. Then, just as Lazue was beginning to fret that she wasn't welcome and was momentarily going to meet an unfortunate end, the crew of pirates erupted. Into cheers of what could have been joy or anger. Lazue couldn't tell.

Ace laughed and waved his arms at everyone, trying to greet all the men that came up to crush him in some sort of man-hug. She found herself jostled and roughed, several of the pirates who'd been caught up in the fray knocking against her and apologizing. Just as she lost Ace to an overly tall half-giant, an arm reached around her shoulders and pulled her into a warm chest.

"Miss Lazue, I think this belongs to you," said the person who'd grabbed her and, she soon realized, was sheltering her from the excitement. She felt a large bag get stuffed into her hands. Her belongings, and whatever Ace had wished to take along for flight snacks.

"Um, thank you, sir," she muttered as the man directed her out of the throng of people who'd struck up some pirate song she'd once heard back in her tavern. When she reached the outer edge, she finally looked up at her temporary rescuer. He was a tall man, slightly taller than Ace, with tanned, weather beaten skin and a dash of blond on the very top of his head. His eyes sparkled with amusement.

"Marco. Not 'sir.' It sounds too formal for a pirate."

Lazue blinked. "Marco's the name of the bird."

"Yes indeed, Marco is my name."

"But, you…the bird was–"

"I am the bird.

"Oh," Lazue breathed. She looked at him again, taking note of his droopy eyes and how disconcertingly familiar the mark on the man's chest was. In fact, she was surrounded by that mark. One of Whitebeard's pirate marks. "_Oh_. You're a zoan type, aren't you?"

Marco seemed slightly surprised by the sudden calmness of her assertion, but shrugged it off with a quick jolt of his shoulders and a small smile. "Yep. Mythical zoan, if you want to be perfectly correct."

Lazue furrowed her brow. She'd read something about mythical zoans in Jaunis' book. "A giant bird," she whispered to herself. Marco was busy looking around with dull interest at the tankards of ale being passed about as she thought deeply, knowing she'd read something about a mythical bird zoan type not long ago. Then she remembered one particular fruit, not its name, but its unique ability that she found quite interesting.

She tugged at the side of his unbuttoned shirt and he looked down at her, somewhat surprised that she'd stayed put rather than wandered off. "You have the power to regenerate, don't you?" she asked over the ding and cheers of the growing party.

His eyes widened and he stooped down to her level. "How could you possibly know that and not know who I am? Did Ace tell you about my Devil Fruit?"

She shook her head. "I read it in a book."

He was about to ask more questions of her when Ace appeared beside them, catching the tail end of their conversation. "It's a book she needs to give to Whitebeard. It's called the Devil Fruit Encyclopaedia. Or something like that."

Marco's eyes were narrowed even further than before, and he was stiff around the shoulders as he grabbed Ace by the arm. "You should take that to Pops right now, before the party gets in full swing. Books like that rarely make it back to him – to us. Since I'm the one who deals with paperwork like this, and I've been doing it since the beginning of this crew, I know precisely the importance of this book. But, I have to ask, where did you get it, Ace?"

Ace looked to Lazue, who blushed as he draped an arm around her shoulders. "_She_ was given it by an old lady named Jaunis."

Marco's eyes widened for a fraction of a second, his feathers ruffled, then he settled down. Trying to appear nonchalant, no doubt. "Is that so."

Not a question, not even a statement; just an affirmation of the truth.

Ace took Lazue's hand and led her away from Marco, shooting the man a strange glance over his shoulder. Marco just shrugged, accepting a tankard of ale that was thrust into his hands by a crewmember. He had nothing left to say.

Lazue tried her best to memorize the route Ace was taking her on, and found that the ship wasn't as big as it had first appeared when they landed on the deck. Well, perhaps big was still a way to describe the ship, but in her mind she had an entire map of her hometown. And a ship was still not as big as an entire island.

She had also noticed a change in Ace's behaviour. Before, he had been solemn and admittedly rather tame; on the _Moby Dick_ he was jubilant and unabashedly wild. He bounded up wooden stairs and greeted everyone who came within earshot. He also made a point to introduce her to his crewmembers, who always gave her their name in return, but she found she couldn't keep up with who everyone was, so settled on just memorizing battle scarred faces.

They found Whitebeard near the bow of the ship. He was kind of hard to miss sitting in the middle of the deck in a large, throne-like chair. He was busy drinking down a casket of sake, but he cut his drink short when Ace leapt at him, landing on his knee. Lazue was sure this was going to end badly, but nobody in the area seemed to care that one boyish man had jumped onto their captain's without so much as warning him first.

"Pops!" Ace cried out, raising a hand to his forehead in mock salute.

He lowered his sake and his brow wrinkled. Lazue couldn't see the smile under his white moustache that swept from east to west but she could certainly feel affection pouring forth from his gentle eyes.

"Brat! You've been gone for a while. I was getting a bit worried you'd fallen asleep and tipped overboard into the ocean. Get lost?" He guffawed as Ace pouted. "And who is this?"

Lazue stiffened as he fixed his gaze on her. Even though he was huge and rather intimidating, there was something else, something inertly powerful about him, and she just knew that the things Ace had told her about this man had all been truth.

"Well, I had a bit of an adventure, yeah. And this is Lazue. She can stay with us, right? I mean, she has no where else to go, and I sort of got her in a bit of trouble…"

Whitebeard snorted. "That sounds like you…"

"Hey! It was an accident!" Ace protested. Lazue couldn't help but notice that Ace looked like a sulking child when insulted by Whitebeard. It made her snicker, as Edward Newgate had assumed the role of a patient, yet teasing fatherly figure.

Her mind raced back to the letters she'd read from Gol D. Roger addressed to Rouge. And here she had wondered what Ace would be like if he had a father. Now she knew. There was no more enmity in his eyes, anger at the world just barely hidden beneath the glass of his soul; instead there was a feeling of belonging and acceptance.

She felt a stab of jealousy. She wanted that, too.

"So, you are Lazue…" Whitebeard mused, leaning forward in his chair. He was such a hulking figure that Lazue instinctively froze like a rabbit caught in the gaze of a famished fox. Then he extended his hand, or rather, a finger on one hand. She reached out as well, felt compelled to do so, and grasped the calloused finger of the strongest man in the world, who felt more like a gentle giant than a tyrant, really. They shook, and Lazue drew back feeling humbled.

Perhaps her preconceptions about pirates really were unfounded. She was beginning to question her prejudices against them. So far she'd only seen their human flaws. It was a little unnerving knowing that everything she'd been taught was biased by the influence of the marines.

"I'm Lazue, yes," she murmured. Despite how soft she spoke, it was clear that Whitebeard had heard her. His eyes softened further.

"Marco told me you have something of interest for me."

She dutifully dug out the book while Ace climbed down from Whitebeard's knee. The text felt heavy and old, as it usually did, and she had no qualms about placing the book into the hands of this pirate captain. It just felt like it was supposed to _be_. Like it was a predetermined fate and she was but a pawn.

Whitebeard held the book up and flipped through many of its weathered pages. "Ah, now this brings back memories of a long time ago…"

"Of course it does, _old man_," Ace quipped, earning him a foot to the side of the chest. He burst into flame, laughing and spinning away like embers lifting from a bonfire. Whitebeard only laughed.

"He's a real cheeky brat, isn't he, Lazue?" She nodded compulsively. "How did you put up with him?"

_Well, I didn't have much of a choice,_ she thought. "He's got charisma, and I suppose I got ensnared by it."

"That he does. Now, I have to ask if it was true what Marco told me: that you obtained this text from a woman named Jaunis."

"It's true," Ace answered. She stared at him and Whitebeard simply shook his head.

"I was asking her, you know."

Ace shrugged. "Well, I was there too. She was given the book and told to protect it. And record knowledge of Devil Fruit powers in it to help us."

By 'us,' Lazue supposed he meant his fellow Devil Fruit users. But she also sensed that 'us' meant _only_ the Whitebeard Pirates. It had been an hour or so since they'd landed on the _Moby Dick _and made their way through hordes of pirates, but already she could tell Ace was highly protective of his mates and would only do special things for those people he trusted.

It amazed her then that he had actually taken her under his wing and accepted her.

"If Jaunis gave you this book so easily, she must have been at the crossroads of life and death," Whitebeard mused sadly.

"She was," Ace answered for her again. "The island was attacked by the marines, who were looking for Lazue and I."

"She died in the battle," Lazue conceded numbly. Her tears for that horrid day had dried up, and all she was left with were nightmares of vined plants drenched in blood. She wondered if Ace thought about Jaunis when his mind idled, and she began to wonder why he wasn't saying anything about _who _Jaunis was to him. They were blood related, and yet Ace did not mention that to Whitebeard. Perhaps, she figured, it was something that was deemed unnecessary by him.

After all, he had his family.

Whitebeard sat back in his chair, his eyes closing against the sun. Lazue figured he was saying some sort of farewell in his head, but the moment was so fleeting that she couldn't be sure of his thoughts on the death of someone he had once known.

"If she gave you this," he held up the book, "then she must have decided it was time for it to permanently change hands, and for a new archivist to take over. So this book doesn't belong to me anymore either, but to you."

He handed Lazue the heavy text and nodded his head once, certain of his choice. "We also have a copy of this book on our ship, open for anyone to read, but it has many gaps in its information. Actually, I think the most recent entry Marco made was for Ace's Mera Mera no Mi."

"Jaunis said to reunite the books and share the information," Lazue said. "To build a better understanding for a Devil Fruit user through obtaining new knowledge."

"Right, girlie, so as long as you're on this ship, you should take up the reins and continue on in you predecessor's place," Whitebeard said. He took another slug of his sake, and that seemed to seal the matter.

Besides, Lazue had no intention of refusing. Here was something she could do, a purpose, and she had no intention of letting that slip away from her. This purpose was, oddly, much more comforting than serving tankards of ale in a tavern.

"Where's the other book?" she asked, grinning along with Ace as she accepted the challenge.

* * *

><p>She was introduced to the Records Cabin by Ace, but ultimately he couldn't stand the apparent stuffiness and had left her in the care of his friends, Marco and Thatch. Division Commanders.<p>

At first, she was nervous to be left in the company of men she didn't know all that well, but she was quick to warm up to Marco, as he never did anything too imposing. Thatch, on the other hand, was imposing to the full extent of his abilities, as he tried to get inappropriately close to her.

"She's Ace's girl, Thatch," Marco said as Lazue moved away from Thatch once more. He had crept up on her again, arm around her shoulders, and was in the process of attempting to mould their thighs together on the bench that faced the table. On the table, two uniformly thick books sat. The encyclopaedias.

"Doesn't mean I can't be appreciative of her," Thatch replied, speaking as if she wasn't present.

"_She _would really like it if you took your hand off of _her _shoulder," Lazue said through clenched teeth. Reluctantly, Thatch let his arm fall from her body. "Now, I should get to work on these books. Whitebeard wants me to combine the information from both of them into a more comprehensive volume, and I kind of want to get started right away."

No sooner did those words leave her mouth when she heard cannon fire. Instantly she jolted to her feet, her mind transporting her back to that battle on Matanza Island. Marco reached out and steadied her, looking not at all alarmed by the noises, but the faintest bit concerned about her overreaction.

"We've been pursuing a merchant vessel for about a day now, Lazue. Likely we've gotten in range. You should go on deck and see."

"What!" Thatch shouted. "Nobody told me we were pursing a merchant vessel! Man, I wonder what division gets to handle this one? Damn, I should have stayed above deck. I really wanted a cut of the money this time…"

"To buy more 'manly magazines' for your collection?" Marco asked with a slight grin.

Thatch flipped some stray hairs back from his face with his palm. "If you must know, I was hoping to save up for a new sword. See, this one here needs a lady friend, I'm thinking." He tapped the pommel of the heavy cutlass that hung from his waist, and Lazue couldn't help but shiver, thinking of all the things that blade might have cut during its lifetime.

"So…you guys are 'pirating' right now?" she managed to ask nervously. Marco and Thatch stared at her, and at last Thatch grabbed a hold of her arm. Any excuse.

"Come on, let's go up on deck and see who was lucky enough to win the draw for the catch!"

And so, Lazue was dragged up onto the main deck. Activity had increased, and she couldn't help but notice how many of the men were grinning merrily, a slight glow to their pupils. It was the treasure, she figured. Lazue saw the merchant vessel off the starboard bow, and they were gaining fast on her, smashing through the waves and homing in on the frightened prey.

Her sharp eyes caught movement on the boat. Beside her, Thatch muttered, "Who the hell got the job? Jozu? Izou? Kingdew? Yo, someone enlighten me!"

"No," Lazue muttered, catching sight of a familiar muscled back. "Ace is over there."

She watched as several other men came on deck to confront her Ace. He sparked a bit of fire that swirled around his fists, but other than that there wasn't much in terms of action to look at in the glare of the sun. Then she watched as they dropped to their knees, seemingly relenting without a fight. Perhaps even begging for their lives to be spared.

"Oh God, he's not going to kill them, is he?" Lazue wailed. Both Marco and Thatch stared at her, incredulous. At last Marco shook his head.

"Uh, no. No. Not when they've so clearly surrendered. See, we're nice for a bunch of pirates, at least towards merchants. We'll take those men and send them off on their lifeboat with a log pose, heading to a safe island. Their life in exchange for their ship. It's not such a bad bargain, if you think about the alternatives."

"Still, I'm surprised they didn't even try to shoot him," Thatch mused. "Usually, when I'm heading a capture, they at least wave their guns in my face a little more. That kid must have one hell of an intimidation strategy. I'll have to ask him when he gets back."

She remembered something Ace had told her. _People don't like to mess with Whitebeard's pirates. Kill one, and you might as well have attempted to take the life of Whitebeard himself. The stupidity is equal._

She watched as Ace continued to move around on the deck of this merchant caravel. He had two men with him, a great big hairy man who mostly laughed and waddled about uselessly, and a smaller man who had occupied himself with tying knots. Around the captives.

Ace brought down the merchant flag and raised another sheet of fabric in its stead. A crudely painted Whitebeard mark.

Instantly, a cheer went up from almost all the men on the _Moby Dick_. Lazue blinked. She had never witnessed pirates capturing another ship before, but she had imagined they'd be bloodier, with a lot more canon fire. That had to be the easiest capture ever.

"This ship better have salt," Whitebeard muttered. Lazue spun around, having not noticed the huge man come to stand behind her. For such a bulky figure, he could move both silently and fast. She couldn't help but marvel at Whitebeard's apparent stealth, her respect for him doubling. "I don't know how many more creative seasonings I will be able to stand. The cooks just throw things on my food willy-nilly, and I don't have the heart to tell them they should make my meals _simple _rather than extravagant."

He grinned down at her, standing in his shadow, and she smiled back feebly, her mind still on Ace and his actions on the merchant vessel.

"He's good at what he does," Whitebeard mused before walking away, his tree-like cane causing slight tremors as he went along. She watched him leave, several of his men trailing along after him, chatting excitedly about the prizes that were sure to be on that vessel Ace had just claimed in his father's honour.

Lazue's eyes wandered back out over the ocean, and she felt a strange pang of dread hit her. She didn't know what caused it, but something in the way Ace had control of everyone on that ship on the horizon seemed to hint at something. Later, when she had Ace alone, she'd ask him about his real duties on the _Moby Dick_.

What he had been keeping from her.

* * *

><p>Two nights later, Lazue found herself waiting in a cold bed for Ace to come back from a Commander's meeting. She didn't really know why it was mandatory for him to attend along with Thatch and Marco, but she figured it had something to do with the fact he had volunteered himself to capture the vessel a few days ago.<p>

They had found Whitebeard's salt on the ship, and a few other spices that she saw the great man groan about whilst his cooks looked absolutely beside themselves with excitement. Any work she might have planned to do on the encyclopaedia was postponed, and she found herself put to work in a group of nurses, who were all sorting through the fresh fruits and vegetables the ship had been loaded with. The nurses were nice to her, but she wished for only Ace's company.

Yet he had only been able to drop by to see her and sort a few tomatoes before being called to another part of the ship. There were always things to be done on a pirate ship. She respected that, but wished things were different.

Now she finally had him to herself. The past few nights she'd fallen asleep before he'd returned to their shared cabin, so this time she lit a candle and focussed on reading some of Gol D. Roger's old letters. His writing was so sloppy, but his wild adventures were certainly worth the wrinkles that she imagined must be forming on her forehead.

Several times she had to get extra close to the candle to be able to read his writing, and after a few letters and adventures on islands in the New World she felt she needed to take a break. As she was leafing through the little black book that belonged to Rouge, sticking the loose letters back inside its folds, she began to notice the impressions on the page that she hadn't focussed too clearly on before. Brow furrowed, Lazue brought the little book closer to the candlelight.

There were dents in the pages. Miniscule dents, but dimples nonetheless. She brought the book closer to the flame, trying to see if there was something there she hadn't seen before.

The paper began to change colour, and quickly she yanked the book out of the path of the heat, blowing on its pages lest they should spontaneously burst into fire. The pages had darkened slightly, but they reverted back to a paler hue the longer he blew on them, worried that she'd damaged the book in some way.

Ace came in just as she deemed it safe to stuff the remainder of the letters sitting out beside her into the book.

"Lazue," he said softly. She looked up at him and placed the book aside on the bed, then barely managed to hold herself to a walk as she hurried up to him. She reached up with her arms and wrapped them around his neck, embracing him and slipping her head into the curve of his neck. Slowly, he embraced her back, clutching her tighter as she lowered her cheek on his collarbone.

"I missed you," she admitted, running her fingers along the groves of his back, following his spine with the tips of her fingers.

He sighed. He had been hoping she wouldn't say that. "I might be gone for a little while, very soon. I…got another assignment from Pops at the suggestion of a few of the Commanders. It's my duty to fulfil it."

She clutched his tense shoulders and drew back. "What? Why? Why did he choose you when he has an entire ship to choose from? Where are you going, anyway?"

He leaned down to place a kiss to her temple. "I'm the second Division Commander." Her eyes widened; she didn't know that, but the signs were all there. How everyone seemed to listen to him, turn to him when they weren't sure of something on the ship. His natural leadership.

Hell, she had even heard someone call him _Commander Ace_ and jokingly slap him on the back. But that's all it had registered in her mind as. A _joke_. Something the pirates on this ship had seemed quite fond of.

He continued. "It's customary that the Division Commander that captures a vessel takes it to market. A few days ago I captured it at the insistence of my Division, and who was I to deny them? I've been gone too long in one shot, and not for a particularly stellar reason either. They wanted me to do something with them."

"You seriously have to _sell_ that merchant ship because _you_ capturedit?" He nodded. "Well, what about us? I mean: I can still stay in this cabin, right? They're not going to toss me overboard while you're away are th–"

"My family would never do that to you. You're safe with them," Ace assured her. She relaxed, for she knew he was right based on the way she'd been treated the past few days, and they went over to the bed. It was a small bed, but good enough for the two of them. It reminded Lazue of the bed in Violet's clinic.

The memories that followed weren't as pleasant as they should have been.

It, in turn, set her off, as she remembered the last conversation she'd had with Jaunis. Now, together with Ace, she felt she could share it with him, but a nagging voice in the back of her head told her to hold off on it for a while. That maybe, not even now, he'd understand.

He kissed her softly as he unbuttoned a blouse she had been given by Violet, pressing open its folds to get at her supple skin underneath. He hadn't touched her like this since that last night on the island, and she was eager to feel his calloused hands on her again. It was comforting to have him close, and he was just warm enough to offset the draft coming through the cabin's only window.

"Ace…"

He knelt in front of her, kissing her chest as he moved down to pull the breeches from her hips she'd been given to wear while she helped out the nurses. Quickly she became naked in front of him, and at a drop of Ace's shorts they were equal. Ace had stopped his affections to pull her into bed with him, draping a blanket over top of them. She lay on his chest, rubbing circles into one of his pectorals while he stroked her hair and kissed her forehead.

She couldn't help but notice his stiffness and general unease. Nothing would happen with him like this, so on edge. "What's wrong?" she whispered.

He let out a deep breath. "I just…I can't help but feel a bit like I'm abandoning you."

"You have no choice. Duty calls. Even for a pirate."

"You're one too now," he answered.

"I'm not. I'm just the woman who accompanied you on your most recent adventure."

His other arm, which he'd wrapped around her waist, clenched her closer to his body. "You're more than that, Lazue."

"You know, they call me 'Ace's woman.' I feel I should be offended, but oddly enough I'm not. I wonder why that is…" she trailed off. She knew why that was. She just wanted to see if he'd answer. She didn't wish to scare him off by admitting that her thoughts towards him had changed immensely since their first encounter.

He pursed his lips. "Well, I'm just glad they haven't given you an embarrassing nickname or anything. Some of the nurses have them, and they're only other ladies on the ship, save for a few wives of some of the men. You should try to get to know some of them. I'm sure they'd like you."

She had to admit he was right. She needed to try her best to make some friends, because Ace wouldn't always be there to stand beside her. "I guess," she said with a yawn. She snuggled down against Ace's skin, wanting to be as close to his warmth as possible. The methodical stroking of her hair as he continued to lie awake and turn things over in his mind eventually nodded her off to sleep.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N.:<strong> Earlier in the day update than usual…mostly because I pretty much am getting laid off from work, haha. Not as bad as it sounds I assure you all.

Anyways, we finally reached part two…thank you to everyone who's been supporting this story, it's so nice to hear from you all.


	19. Chapter XIX

**...**

* * *

><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter XIX_

* * *

><p>Four weeks later she still hadn't grasped the enormity of the task she'd volunteered herself for.<p>

"I can't read this person's writing," Lazue complained, squinting down at the musty sheet of paper. "It's like they wrote it in another damn language or something."

Marco laughed, as he usually did when she cursed out the book of cursed fruits. "Perhaps it _is_ in another damn language, as you so eloquently put it. Here, use this glass instrument. I stole it from the navigator's quarters. It magnifies things to an extreme." He handed her a boxy piece of glass that was held in place by a frame of wood. She placed it over the text and immediately the meaning became clear.

"I wish you'd told me you had something like this on the ship a long time ago, you jerk. Do you have any idea what I've suffered through? What my brilliant eyes have suffered through?"

He laughed again, and she realized he probably did. After all, he was the only one who cared enough to record the passing of time, and keep the ship's log in order, as well as keep track of the pirate's bounties. It didn't surprise her then, after learning all of that, that he would be the one assigned to watch over her in her endeavour to create a fresh encyclopedia that did not reek of dead creatures and dust.

It would be laborious work, she had figured. How laborious, she hadn't known at the time of the agreement.

"Good grief. It says here there's a Devil Fruit called the Toge Toge no Mi that allows its user to turn into spikes. That must be unbearable."

"Perhaps," Marco mused quietly. "I wouldn't know, and neither would you, girlie."

Lazue shrugged and rubbed at her tired eyes. They'd been at this for a while now, hours melting into hours, and she was getting bored of the book and Marco's relatively silent company, as he too had work to be doing. She wanted to walk around on deck with Ace, but the man whom she'd recently found out was actually a Commander in his own right was absent, bringing a recently captured vessel around to a potential buyer. She had found that the Whitebeard pirates were more industrious than she had initially believed when she boarded the ship to find them all in varying degrees of drunkenness. Then again, it would have been absurd if Whitebeard didn't have a plan to feed his extensive family, so she felt a twinge of embarrassment when Marco had divulged that information, as it seemed so commonplace.

She defended herself using the usual – that she wasn't a pirate and therefore didn't know a damn thing about pirate policies, or crew matters, or whatever the hell they concerned themselves with.

Marco always gently reminded her that she was, in fact, a pirate now.

She didn't see it, but she humoured him. After all, he was Ace's friend, and she wished to remain in Ace's good graces more than anything. Especially now, surrounded by people she hardly knew out on a rough ocean that was notorious for ending the lives of fearless sailors.

They had returned to the New World early last week. The going had been treacherous, and she had ended up in Ace's cabin hunched over a bucket for the duration of their visit to Fishman Island.

The sea was rougher here, but the crew of pirates welcomed the change with open arms. She realized – standing on deck with them as a hurricane tore through an island they had debated on landing upon earlier – that they embraced calamity. They laughed at danger. They downright _joked_ about death.

It scared her, but at the same time she was absolutely envious of their apparent courage.

"You hungry?" Marco suddenly asked.

Lazue hadn't really heard him; she'd been lost in her thoughts about the pirates battling a hurricane for _fun_. "Hmm, what?"

"Hungry? I swear I just heard your stomach growling," he said, pointedly sneaking a look at her cleavage. He did it as often as the opportunity arose, and Lazue knew he did it just to bug her, not because he was genuinely interested.

"Marco! Honestly, you're just as dirty a pirate as Thatch!" She readied her hand to hit him, but then thought better of it. The last time she'd hit Marco, which was about a few days ago now when she'd finally worked up the courage to, it had been like smashing her knuckle against a brick wall. She came off worse.

"Who is right behind you, by the way."

She almost jumped out of her chair as Thatch's jovial voice whispered right into her ear canal, so close she could feel his warm breath on her skin.

"_Holy shit_!"

"Such _unholy_ words from such a beautiful lady," Marco mused, putting on his best 'disappointed-in-you' face. Underneath, though, was a smile just barely concealed.

"She's a pirate," Thatch insisted with a smile. He dropped into an empty chair next to Marco, and set something down on the table behind him.

"No, I'm not! And how did you get in here without me noticing? And…were you standing behind me to look down my shirt again?!"

"I got in here because I'm a stealthy swordsman–"

"But not stealthy enough to conceal his perverse motives," Marco interrupted. Thatch threw an elbow, but he grinned the entire time and dodged as Marco went straight for his hair, intending to muss it up as she'd seen Ace often attempt to do. She didn't know how everyone saw three great Commanders. All she saw was three childish hooligans under the guise of big, bad pirates.

"You two are both perverted jerks and I hope Ace burns your asses when he gets back–"

Her stomach chose that moment to interrupt with a rather snarly howl for nourishment.

Both men froze in their exchange of playful punches. She supposed she turned a bright red, but as soon as they started to laugh raucously the bright red became one of anger more than embarrassment.

"It's not _that _funny!"

"Don't worry!" Thatch shouted between fits of laughter. "I brought food so it won't cross your mind to eat _this_ chicken!"

"Hey!" Marco yelled, leaping at Thatch and knocking him out of his chair and to the ground. "You better take that back or I'll–"

"Lay an egg and throw it at me?"

"No! I'll cut all your hair off in your sleep. Just like some twenty-odd years ago…"

Thatch noticeably blanched, and Lazue quickly figured out what his true weakness was. She tucked it away in her brain for further exploitation at a later date.

With the two men squabbling amongst themselves, she abandoned her duties to seek out what Thatch had silently brought into the room with him. A bag of food that contained a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a messy looking pie beckoned her to indulge.

That pie…she craved it.

She couldn't help herself. She could certainly feel her stomach eating itself out of desperation now that Marco had pointed it out. She started without their consent, attacking the delicious-looking pie first.

It went down without a hitch, no burps or protests to be heard. It didn't really cross her mind that they might have wanted a piece until all that was left of the pastry was a few crumbs on the table that she diligently brushed away from her archiving project.

Almost immediately after, she noticed the sudden silence.

"Did you see that?"

"Yep. This one is Ace's girl all right."

The implications were immediate. More so when, two weeks ago, the _Moby Dick_ was turned into a banquet hall in which all the pirates aboard got completely wasted on food and drink, Ace coming off as one of the worst for cleaning the ship's stock out. She spun on them and threw a few bad names their way.

"_You_ were the one that ate _my_ pie!" Thatch huffed. He didn't really seem angry though; more amused than anything.

"I was damn hungry!"

"Really hungry," Marco commented. "An Ace kind of hungry. It was hilarious, girlie."

She huffed and stormed out of the room. It was definitely time to seek out the female companionship of some of those nurses that hung around Whitebeard, making sure he didn't threaten his health any more than usual with his alcoholism.

She would deal with the ever-difficult Marco and Thatch again only when Ace got back. Whenever that would be.

* * *

><p>Sometime between now and the moment he'd punched a hole in the hull of a marine vessel things had begun to get a little too rowdy to do something as simple as sell a ship to the highest bidder. Ace was hardly concerned at the time, but now he wished he'd not infuriated the marines any more than usual.<p>

The island they usually sold their captured vessels at, to merchants for half of what they were actually worth, had been crawling with marines. Someone had ratted their business out for a quick fix of cash. Likely a merchant they'd ripped off in the past in some way or another. Perhaps someone they had threatened.

At any rate, the rats had come scampering out of buildings and or had been situated in unmarked ships sitting just off the island's shore. Waiting for them. An ambush.

That failed. Miserably. When Ace had punched through their formation and ordered his crew to turn their captured vessel on its rudder, the marines had given chase out of pure rage.

Unfortunately the vessel, which they'd nicknamed _The Sow_, did not take kindly to increasing their speed. Hence why it had taken so long to get to this island in the first place.

"She moves like a heavily pregnant woman," one of his men muttered, watching the marine fleet gain on their position. "Commander, you should firestorm them."

"They're not yet in range of my fists," Ace said, leaning over the railing to watch the waves roll against the hull. The ship dipped heavily, leaning to the right side. Even when he had his crew readjust the meagre cargo the ship still carried, the ship still favoured one side like a wounded beast. "Though they'll get into range soon if this keeps up. Are we _really_ at full canvas?"

"Yes," a tall, dark-skinned man answered. Ace had singled him out to be his right hand for the voyage. His name was simply Fin, and it was the only name the crew knew him by. "Got every bit of sail but we're moving at only a few knots. Should I make a signal to Marley to scrounge up cannonballs and get ready to engage that ship off the port side? Or will you take care of it? I just have to say though; the boys want to shoot at things. We've been idle for too long without you, Commander."

Marley was in charge of the second ship they'd brought along for the journey. Their return ship, a two sail, square rigged snow brig simply named _The Porpoise_. It was a fast little bugger, and right now that ship was only at half canvas, slowing down to sail at the same speed as their captured caravel. An image of a lithe young man helping an older lady walk along came into Ace's mind and he frowned.

He continued to watch the waves slap the hull, only half pondering Fin's words. Somehow, he felt their pregnant sow of a ship had a few more problems. He had been watching the hull closely enough to notice the minute details of something gone amiss. How it kept dipping deeper into the waves by the tiniest of fractions. "We're slowly taking on water, aren't we? Well, more water than usual, anyhow."

The man furrowed his brow, ran deep into the bowels of the ship where nobody was currently situated on bailing duty, came back, and confirmed Ace's suspicions.

"See that ship, Fin?" He pointed to the exact one Fin had singled out only minutes before. "Unmarked marine vessel. We're going to take it and let this one sink. Preferably before our other pursuers come up alongside us."

Fin grunted at the absurdity, then laughed. "You always were the crazy one, Ace."

He had been a Spade pirate before joining Whitebeard. His right hand knew better than most.

"Still, Marley doesn't have enough cannons on _The Porpoise_. Or men. Guess we expected a quicker run than this." Fin's dark eyes swept over the men sitting up in the rigging, adjusting sails every few minutes to catch the most of the waning wind. The vessel they were on needed all the help it could get.

"I already know we're shorthanded topside and can't spare men for cannons, but I don't plan on playing cat and mouse with these guys. I want to get back to the _Moby Dick_ as quickly as I can, and there's no way in hell I'll be able to do that on this ship. Signal Marley to ready our return ship and I'll round up ten of us. We'll make a little trip over there with the crew on the snow brig, secure that marine ship, take it to the next island, sell it stripped of its marine coating, then head back to Pops." Ace took a deep breath after he finished explaining, looking to Fin expectantly.

"I'm surprised you've actually got this all planned out, Ace," Fin said. Ace cast his eyes out to sea, taking in their new target. He could feel himself growing hot. "That eager to see your girl, huh?"

Ace's eyes flickered from the waves to Fin's grinning face. "Perhaps. But now's not the time for tea, biscuits, and idle chit-chat. Jeez, Fin."

Fin left to fulfill his duties, and Ace sighed. He'd been irritable these past few days. Snapping at people with sharp, often too formal commands, and sulking on deck when there wasn't anything to be done to keep the ships in order. He attributed it to the lack of having someone lie down next to him in bed at night.

He hadn't been sleeping much lately. It was beginning to catch up to him.

He missed Lazue's presence. It was eating away at his patience. Everyone knew it too. Nobody dared to light his fuse.

He shoved off the side of the ship and went about the ranks of men from the second division. Out of the few that had wanted to come he selected ten of his best men, then found Fin and assigned him control of _The Sow_. Should the marines on board the ship they were about to steal decide to blow it to smithereens rather than hand it over to pirates, Ace wanted Fin in place to prevent that.

Marley drew _The Porpoise_ as close as he dared and they boarded. Ace assumed control, then they were off like a shot, careening left towards their target, which had been trying to gain on them to engage them in combat. Ace made it easy for them to get what they wanted. A fight.

Warning shots were fired from both sides, cannonballs plunking into the ocean. While _The Porpoise _was certainly undermanned for cannon warfare, Ace hadn't planned on taking that route anyway. He wanted to preserve both ships as much as possible. Holes and splintered wood weren't on his agenda.

"Cut around their bow, we'll board from the back of our ship," Ace said to Marley, a pudgy man whose laughter reminded Ace of a pig's squealing.

Marley gaped at him. "They'll rake us for sure!"

"Not if they can't get their cannons to the bow on time. Look at them, scrambling to assemble shot into their starboard guns like a bunch of overconfident idiots. Do you see canons on the bow?" Marley squinted into the sunlight, then slowly shook his head. "Then bring us around and put them in our shadow."

While Marley shouted orders at the helmsman and then those who were up in the rigging, Ace got his ten men together that he'd designated as boarders and briefed them. They were to take the ship with minimal casualties and marginal damage.

His men were eager to fight, and he reminded them more than once that they would be taking prisoners first and lives second, only after all other options were exhausted.

"Why bother?" one of his boarders asked, a sandy haired man with a jagged scar running down the length of his left cheek. "If they wanted a fight to begin with, they're gonna get a fight. Why not just go all out?"

Why indeed. Ace was known to fight tooth and nail, and there were those that succumbed to his attacks. Nothing more, nothing less. He wasn't the executioner type, but he hadn't shown much sympathy in previous engagements with the marines. Especially those that surrendered and were deemed cowards.

"It would be a waste of life to just pummel them into the ground. They hardly stand a chance, so we'll toss them overboard and see how long it takes for one of their own ships in that fleet chasing us to pick them up," Ace said. A few of his men nodded, but even more were just puzzled by his generosity. He dismissed his group, asking them to return with weapons when the snow brig got into position.

Their plot happened too quickly for the enemy carrack. By the time the marines figured out what _The Porpoise _was up to mimicking their moves and sailing right for them, they had already closed and were throwing lines to climb over. Ace gave the order, and his ten seamen boarded after him. He was already aware he'd been shot twice in his abdomen by the enemy.

He lit up, a flash fire ripping out of every pore on his body.

Some men screamed from burns and bullets hitting home. Others dove over the side without engaging in combat.

_Well, well, well,_ thought Ace, _Even in the New World there are still some cowards._

They cleaned the main deck of men, doing a thorough sweep, and Ace found that only a few of his boarders had obeyed his call for prisoners, not lives. Half of his men wielded pistols of some sort, and of those half only a quarter had shot non-fatal wounds into the marine ranks. The rest hacked away with swords.

Ace reined his men in once he found a stiff, wide-eyed man standing with a curved sword in one hand. For a moment the two stared at one another. Then, upon realizing the futileness of engaging a man made of transient fire, the captain of the carrack threw his sword to the ground angrily. And his body followed.

"Kill me then, you blasted pirate!" he yelled as Ace stooped to pick up the curved blade. It was heavy in his hands, a dead weight.

Marley came up alongside him, staring down at the man grovelling before them, begging for death. He let out a little piggish squeal. "We're getting them tied up. Or at least what's left of them. No fight in a crew whose captain drops to his knees with the realization that he cannot possibly win against the sons of Whitebeard."

Ace grunted. "Send them out on the longboat. Port side. I don't want them getting burnt."

While Marley puzzled over this and went to act as cattle herder, Ace turned back down to the marine captain. Normally, he wouldn't have any hesitation. This was the part where he relieved the man of his duties, sent him into the afterlife. If there were such a thing.

"You truly wish to die?" Ace asked again, weighing the sword in his hand. "You can leave with your men and get picked up by the other marines, if you wish. It makes no difference to me."

Ace knew what his reply would be, even before he muttered it into the planks of the carrack. "I _cannot_ leave."

So, he did have some honour as a captain. Ace liked that; it was something he could respect.

He glanced behind him to check for many onlookers and then, quick as could be, brought the sword clean through the heart of this ship's captain and was done with it.

Someone else offered to take care of the body, give it a proper sea burial in canvas with a ball of chainshot attached to make sure the body sunk, and Ace went below deck to see what the ship was loaded with. Weapons of war and very little else. Typical marine cargo. He would bet even the ship's ballast held loads of cannonballs rather than a surplus of stale seawater and various sea life that had been along for the ride.

He came across the barracks where the crew slept and a gleam of gold caught his eye. He picked it up from its place half hidden under a blanket. It was a gold locket, very plain in its construction.

He thumbed it open and looked at the two people inside, a younger female and one clearly her mother. Family.

Part of him wanted to toss the locket across the room, but the other side of him cradled it and thought, _What would Lazue think of this?_

Of course, he already knew what she would think. What startled him was that what she would think bordered very close to what he actually was thinking right now while he held the sacred memento of a sailor whose life could've been taken today. Maybe even by his hands.

He pocketed the locket, intending to toss it into the longboat his men were piling the still living marines into. And if they had been cast out already by the time he got back up on deck, then he'd offer it to the ocean.

He went above and looked around dolefully, taking in the hustle and bustle that had taken over. His men were well trained, even after many weeks of his absence. They still knew exactly what he expected of them. Already the deck had been cleared of fallen bodies, and the canvasses were out fully. _The Porpoise_ and _The Sow_ were off the starboard bow, planked together. Everything of value was being transferred from the caravel to the snow brig. Perfect.

Marley tapped him on the shoulder. "Fin sent a message over here to ask you for the next bunch of orders. Should we scuttle _The Sow_? The marines are catching up with us."

Should they deliberately sink the ship by tearing a gash into its hull? Ace snickered. No. That would be too easy and tame for a bunch of notorious pirates.

He looked at the fleet of three ships that seemed to be hesitating on whether or not to pursue them now that they had their ships under control. They appeared to be under the impression that Ace had brought along a large crew for this task, but once they got close enough to observe them without the spyglass, Ace knew they'd be on to them with the intent to kill.

"Let's set her on the marines." Eyes blinked at him, confused. "There's a powder store in the back, isn't there?" Recognition flitted across their faces and some of the men grinned.

The marines wouldn't chase them right away with a burning ship in their path. Not to mention they certainly wouldn't be overly confident when faced with one exploding in each direction.

The carrack and snow brig were well suited to one another in terms of speed. When they finished preparations, they left the old caravel to drift off, and put enough distance between her and them before Ace left out a punch packed with fire. The ensuing inferno coated _The Sow _and set her aflame.

Many of his men laughed as the vessel burst into a flash of white light, blowing sky island high.


	20. Chapter XX

**...**

* * *

><p><strong>Encounters<br>**

Chapter XX

* * *

><p>The gold locket had gone over the side, into the ocean.<p>

Ace felt better to have it out of his possession. It didn't feel right in his pocket, those two smiling faces swimming around in the lint from his shorts. Besides, if the man who owned the locket was dead, it was only right that his most precious belonging would join the ocean with his mortal body.

Remnants of _The Sow_ still burned on the horizon. The marines that had been pursuing them had turned around and gone back, unprepared to face the terror that was Fire Fist Ace and his unknown number of ruffian crewmates. This made Ace sigh with relief; he really didn't think his conscience could handle any more deaths settling there.

Fin had spotted the island first. It was a frightful, mountainous island that looked devoid of life except for the many pine trees that littered the island's base. Ace knew, from experience, that the mountains held a village of people that lived half underground and half on the sides of mountains. They were warm people that welcomed travellers to their snowy island, a rarity in the New World.

They were also one of Whitebeard's islands, protected under his flag.

"Perfect," Ace said as Fin informed him of the island's presence while he lounged in his cabin. "Set a course for the hidden bay on the east side. We'll be able to sell the carrack easily to their merchants. They ship out precious ores from those mountains, and a carrack is perfect as a cargo ship."

Fin left him and directed the crew while Ace took a nap. It had been a while since he'd slept without interruption. By the time he awoke again his crew had docked. He put in an appearance and grabbed the necessary papers from the little office aboard the ship. Everything he needed for a smooth transaction.

Someone draped a cloak over his shoulders after they jumped off the ship and onto a rock that extended out into the bay and served as a dock. Long ago the people of the island had used rock slabs rather than wood to build their dock, and it had stood anchored to the bottom of the bay ever since. Trees were highly prized on the island as it took them many years to grow in such a harsh climate, and to waste one was to commit a high crime.

Ace looked around at the forest of pine trees, boughs heavy with snow. They formed a protective barrier around the bay they'd docked in, and kept their ships hidden from whatever prowled on the ocean outside. A few small vessels hung about in the harbour, most with broad bows designed to break the ice. All the ships, though, had come from previous owners out on the sea, and it had been Whitebeard's men who'd brought them to the island and helped to move the economy ever so subtly.

Ace left a guard in case the marines found them, which was highly unlikely but still very possible, and took the remainder of his men up a mountain trail. Soon they came across the base of a mountain, and the mouth of a tunnel that led into darkness. The crew entered.

They continued to just walk forward, aware of a light deep in the tunnel that told of a wooden door. When they reached it, Ace knocked once, then twice, then five times in quick succession. Someone on the other side heaved the door open and light shone on their faces.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Commander Ace!" said a man covered head to toe in a furred suit. His dark eyes and equally dark complexion blended in with the dark pelt he wore. "Come in, come in! And what do we have the pleasure of receiving your division for?"

"I have a ship for the highest bidder," Ace said, grasping the man's elbow in a strange exchange while he in turn had his elbow grasped. Their traditions were rather medieval, but Ace enjoyed them. It was a change of pace.

The man moved aside and revealed the village within the mountain, many different structures forming many different housing units, all made out of stone in brilliant hues of red, gold, grey and blue. Contrary to the hard building materials, the atmosphere was warm, and Ace knew that was attributed to the molten lava that ran deep underneath the island, likely near the ocean's floor. The heat rose up, defusing before it got too hot to scorch the people of the mountain. It was not a volcano, but a hot pad.

The wonders in the New World were numerous.

"Auction for a ship," the gateman cried into the depths of the hollowed out rock. His voice bounced off the walls of solid rock, loud enough so that every ear heard. Suddenly, many different people emerged from their houses, chatting excitedly and coming towards them. Ace headed back outside with his men, knowing that the sound that bounced around gave the pirates, who were not used to it, monumental headaches.

Some of his crew sat in the snow on the dock with him while others went with a collection of the villagers, young and old, as they excitedly boarded the ship. Ace watched some of the children covered in snow-white pelts climb aboard and begin to play while their parents examined the ship in closer detail. The kids reminded Ace of memories that he had repressed, those that featured him and Sabo playing around down by the docks around the Grey Terminal. Eventually Luffy had come along too, and it had been the three of them…

Had been, yes.

He pushed the bittersweet memories away and approached the man wearing a deep red necklace. Rubies were rare, even in this mountain that held a wealth of other jewels. The mayor was the only one allowed to wear rubies. "Hey, Mr. Anders. We're looking to start the bidding at a reasonable price. How's 100,000,000 beli sound?"

"You want us to start the bid as if we're trying to win ourselves a Devil Fruit?"

Ace laughed and the mayor began to laugh with him. "You take advantage of my people's newfound wealth, Ace!"

Nevertheless, the bidding did start at Ace's proposed price, partly because the mayor knew that his citizens were going to bid high above that. And sure enough they did.

The carrack was bought for over 300,000,000 beli by a man whose crew mined ore deep within the mountains and planned to ship it out to the market on a nearby island. Really though, another ship benefited everyone on the island, and those that didn't have the money to pay outright were hardly disappointed.

Afterwards, Mayor Anders invited them back into the village for a banquet, and despite wishing to turn tail and sail back to the _Moby Dick _as quickly as he could, he could tell his men were tired. Besides, he figured a few bites to eat and some drink would do him well, too.

It was when he was wandering the stone streets of the village, tankard of drink in one hand and a slab of meat in the other, that he noticed some of the shops. One in particular caught his eyes, and he finished his meat before stepping inside.

There were many shops that advertised precious jewels, and Ace knew a lot of his men were going to get hung up on those, but only one shop so far had held in its windows something made from the forest surrounding the mountain. The shop he had dove into.

Inside the singular room was well lit with the same lamps he'd seen hanging from the stone ceiling of the village, and books lined the walls around Ace. He thought he was alone, the keeper of the store having left it unattended to join in the festivities down in the centre of the village square. But he was certainly not alone when he felt an arm grasp his wrist just as he reached for a book on the shelf.

He startled and caught fire around that wrist, partly because he hadn't _heard_ the person come up behind him and partly because he hadn't felt any presence that told of a living soul inside the shop with him. Usually he was better than this at detecting things.

The person let go of his wrist with a jerk. The flames hadn't flared long enough to burn her, but she'd felt their heat.

"Oh, a Devil Fruit user!" she exclaimed as he turned towards the feeble voice. "You…_must_ be Fire Fist Ace, the one they're all talking about down there. _Must _be."

"I suppose," Ace said with a sigh. He could barely see this young woman. She appeared shrouded in shadows. "What's up with your skin?" he asked bluntly, noting how the woman's pale skin almost seemed to mould with the dimness of the room. Become one with it.

"I, too, possess a Devil Fruit. The Blend Blend no Mi."

Ace bristled, instantly becoming defensive. A Devil Fruit user of any type was not to be taken lightly. Seeing this, the women held up her hands, which were whitish and almost see-through. She appeared ghostly, a spectral being. "I don't mean you any harm. In fact, I just want to ask you a few questions…"

Ace didn't relax, but he didn't run out of the shop anyway. "Oh. Really? About what?"

"The Mera Mera no Mi."

"Oh. So you know the name of my Devil Fruit?"

"Most people who know your name also know you ate that Fruit," she replied, coming around him to straighten up a few books on the shelf. Now that she was moving, he could certainly see what the beginnings of what her powers were.

"You're really ghost-like," he blurted out without thinking.

Her eyes, grey as the stone that was to be found along the walls of the cavern outside the shop, flicked back to his face. "I never noticed," she said dryly. All of a sudden he became mighty uncomfortable standing next to her, a fellow user. Not to mention there was an air about her that was eerily familiar. The sarcasm just triggered a sinking feeling in his gut.

"I prefer chameleon-like, if you must give it an adjective. Watch."

She raised her hand next to the bookshelf and, all of a sudden it disappeared completely from Ace's sight, fading away until he was left to stare at nothing but a handless arm and some musty books. "That's…"

"That's my power. The power to blend in to my surroundings. You can still reach out and touch my hand. Try it," she insisted. He did, and sure enough he felt cold skin where there should have been nothing but air. He shrunk back. She was so cold compared to him, and her skin wasn't the most appealing texture. She laughed as if guessing his thoughts.

"Reptile-like skin, huh?" He just shrugged, still trying to remain polite despite being unnerved. "Well, how about your Mera Mera? Do you get hot? Are you able to summon fire at will? How hot can you burn? Have you ever burned out?"

Ace cocked an eyebrow. "What…why do you want to know all of these things?"

"I just want to make one last entry into the book before I hand it over to you…"

Instantly, Ace's eyes narrowed. "What book?"

She pursed her lips and scurried away, but as Ace tried to follow her deeper into the shop, she began to fade away into her surroundings. He lost her, and decided to stay put, his senses heightened so that he could figure out where she was this time. If she irritated him excessively, he'd threaten to burn her shop walls. If that didn't make her talk sense to him, he didn't know what would.

He was more irate than usual without Lazue, and it was starting to show.

"This book."

He spun around, coming nearly face to face with the cold, pale woman. In her hands was a brown, leather bound volume. He knew it even before she told him. "The Devil Fruit Encyclopedia. Number three."

At this she cocked an eyebrow. "Oh, you know of this?" He nodded and gave a bit of a shrug. "That's convenient considering I was going to try and convince the next Whitebeard pirate that came here to the island to return it to Pops. The last person to own this particular book…well, she's dying soon. Whitebeard will know them. That's if the old coot can still remember things."

The woman shoved the book at him and reflexively he received it. Then she plucked a smaller book from the shelf behind her and placed it on top. "You can have this for free since you're running an errand for me."

"Wait, I…"

In the second he looked down to take a closer look at the book she'd throw on top, a little black book, she had vanished. There was no one in the shop with him. Even when he squinted not a single molecule of air appeared out of place. She had blended in perfectly.

"Go," she urged in a windy whisper that carried from a few different areas at once.

Ace sighed, feeling like he was now trespassing, and left before things got weirder.

* * *

><p>The nurses were so much more understanding of her predicament with Ace than she'd thought they'd be.<p>

"Oh, _God_," one of the ladies cried, crossing her legs and fixing her skirt. "I got dragged onto this ship by some idiot man, too! I can relate." The blonde who announced that shook her head and laughed.

"Most everyone came that way," a woman piped up in a starkly deep voice. Lazue brightened; this redhead who was undoubtedly the oldest of the nurses at a staggering forty-two years of age had taken her under her wing since the moment she'd needed a change of wardrobe, which had been within the first few days of landing upon the _Moby Dick_. It had only taken a week, but already Lazue felt calm and trusting of these women that were Whitebeard's diligent nurses. Even in this the short period of time they were starting to feel like her sisters and the trust was beginning to solidify. After all, they hadn't any reason to murder her whilst she sleep. None of them had wanted Ace to themselves. Their reason?

He ate way too damn much, slept too late, and drank like every other son of Whitebeard.

So there was no competition. And thus the atmosphere had relaxed to the point where Lazue had shared her life story. In return, they shared theirs.

"I've been here since the very beginning of Pops' declining health," the redhead called Hannah continued, her voice rising in fervour. Lazue glanced around and saw the five other women seated in a circle on deck with them nod solemnly. "And I swear those goddamn idiots have been worsening his condition! I tell them: _No, Pops' lungs will worsen if we land on the island made of lightning clouds, _but oh no! They convince him to go on an adventure anyway, even though we've landed on that island a thousand damn times! Hell, those men just like the way the lightning tingles their beards…"

Lazue snickered a little bit, along with another girl who sat beside her with strawberry blonde hair pulled back into braids, held there by a black bandana. She was young; perhaps only as old as Lazue, and often when the redhead went on a rant they exchanged amused glances. Her name was Mabel. Those outside of the Sisterhood, the sub-crew of nurses she'd found herself inducted into by subtle force, called her the songbird. Meadowlark, the manly pirates often called out.

Mabel hated it. It was the running gag with her ever since the first time she'd gotten drunk on the ship nary a year prior and belted out a tuneless song. She had found solace in the fact that Lazue, too, had a few embarrassing problems, most notably her apparent appetite that seemed to match Commander Ace's.

That damn ferocious appetite that seemed to be growing in strength as of late.

"Quick, we should get out of here before she goes off on a tangent again," Mabel whispered. "Make up an excuse. I'll tell them you're hungry."

"I am actually kind of hungry," Lazue muttered back glumly. She couldn't even deny it. At least her stomach wasn't looking different since she'd begun her constant grazing like a rudiment animal.

"Girls, Lazue's hungry so we're going to the kitchen," Mabel said loudly. Most of the women nodded without much care, but some of them looked downright floored.

Hannah voiced the opinions of those that were incredulously disbelieving of Lazue's void of a stomach. "But you just ate like a half hour ago!"

"I know!" Lazue cried exasperated. "I know. I don't know what's wrong with me."

Before Hannah could rant about her stomach, Mabel had dragged her to her feet with strength Lazue wondered after, and they were off at a run towards the galley.

"Hey, Meadowlark!" a pirate called after them.

"Shut up, fool!" Mabel called back, but her tone was light-hearted. Where Lazue would have meant the comment with vehement maliciousness, Mabel joked about everything. Even the things she didn't particularly like, such as her nickname.

They dashed into the kitchen, encountering a few scraggly pirates chatting around a table and playing a game of poker. The cooks were farther in the back, piously guarding the food storage rooms. If they could be accessed without a fight, the majority of Whitebeard's crew would be constantly depleting their resources.

"Hey, hey, hey," one of the cooks cried as Mabel took Lazue's hand and tried to sneak past the impenetrable wall made up of three burly men. "What do you two lassies think you're doing?"

Mabel changed in a matter of seconds, eyes becoming wide and beguiling. "What do you mean? We're hungry. Surely you big, strong men could spare a little bread and butter?"

They were alike at the core, after all. Lazue joined in the fun, strutting forward and placing herself in front of the tallest of the cooks, who really did tower over her. She got close enough that, in order to see her, he had to look down. A perfect cleavage opportunity.

"If we let everyone eat, all the time…" he trailed off.

The shirt Mabel had lent her certainly had a scoop neck. She could already see the man turning into a flustered mess.

"But we're not _everyone_," Lazue insisted, blinking rapidly. "We're ladies with small stomachs just looking for a snack."

"No, no," the man hurried to say. "But it wouldn't be fair to–"

Mabel stepped forward and downright hugged the man Lazue was working over. "But Jasper! Nobody has to know! The boys out there playing cards didn't even notice us come in."

"It's true," Lazue said. She assailed the same man, wrapping her arms around his bulging frame as best she could, reinforcing the arms that were already gripping him. "It'll be _our _little secret."

"…Okay," he conceded with a flushed face and chest, moving aside. The other two men were aghast.

"Jasper!"

"How could you give in?"

"But…well, Commander Ace might get annoyed if his girl starves."

Eyes roved her voluptuous curves. "She doesn't look like she's starving," one of them said. Lazue tried not to get violent. She told herself they were not calling her fat, just healthy.

"We won't eat much," Mabel vowed.

All eyes turned to Lazue. She knew her face was sour with irritation. They all seriously believed she would eat them out of ship and home. "I'm not _Ace_."

They had to agree with her on that, and at last they let the girls by.

Once inside the storage room and out of sight they began to browse the wares. Lazue found a box of pre-made pies that were going to be served later tonight and grabbed two. Then her stomach growled. After minimal contemplation, she grabbed a third to add to her stack.

She turned and saw Mabel had snatched up a bunch of oranges, her favourite fruit, and was dropping them down her shirt to lodge in her bra. Two oranges had given her a middle lump in between her real globes.

"Mabel…that doesn't look real."

She paused in her efforts. "Damn. I knew I should have worn the sports bra today." She continued fiddling with the oranges, trying to get them to sit right in her top. Citrus treats were a privilege on any ship, and the crew of the _Moby Dick_ especially favoured them for sustenance during long sea voyages. So snatching more than one at a time was not only risky on Mabel's part, but a bit excessive.

Lazue was rightfully sceptical. "Are you sure you should be…"

"Lazue, you'll thank me later when you get hungry for a midnight snack," she said, sticking yet another orange down her shirt. Now she was downright _bulging_. They were going to have to sprint out of the storage area and hope the cooks didn't pursue them.

"By the way, Lazue, how did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Get Ace to fall for you. It's kind of obvious he is absolutely _enamoured _of you. I'm gonna assume you haven't told the Sisterhood _everything _that happened since that moment Ace dined and dashed on you."

Lazue was quiet for a moment, clutching her pies. "Well," she mumbled, "I used to think he pitied me. But now I'm not even sure what's between us, if anything. I guess we just have a mutual interest in certain things. Why would you ask? We're you hoping I could provide you with advice for something, or what?"

She had guessed right. Mabel twiddled her fingers about the circumference of one of her oranges, looking at its skin intently.

"Ah, well, I do like Commander Thatch. He's rugged and manly, but he didn't end up like a hulking giant or worse, _like_ _Commander_ _Jozu_." Here she blushed a bit, but with her complexion the red hues were magnified so she resembled one of the overripe tomatoes Lazue had sometimes prepared back in the tavern. "But he's probably too old to have any interest in me."

Lazue cocked an eyebrow, thinking of all the times Thatch had stared at her ass as she walked by or down her shirt when he was up sitting atop one of the yardarms. "I'm sure he'd jump on the chance to have you, Mabel. He's into younger women," she said dryly.

"You think?" she asked, hope evident in her giddy tone.

"It's not something you should be happy about," Lazue said with a roll of her eyes. "It means he's more likely to use you and drop you when the occasion arises. Besides, he's a pirate. It's in their blood to take what they want and dump off what they don't into the goddamn ocean."

Mabel huffed. "You're so cynical, Lazue." She brightened and her blush faded. "But that's what I like about you. All the other nurses don't even humour me. Not that I'd tell them I'm in love with Commander Thatch. They'd laugh. Lots."

"Oh, great, you're in _love_?"

Mabel let loose a torrent of laughter. "Yes. Now forget about that for a moment. We have to get out of here with our pirate booty." She waggled what was topside.

Lazue just shook her head. She wouldn't even argue with Mabel. Not that she could, since the girl had already taken flight.

Lazue ran after her, the stack of pies teetering precariously as she shimmied her way through the bodies of the cooks. Thankfully, they took little notice of her, as something on a stove was burning and they were all yelling at each other to fix the problem.

All the men sitting at the poker table were indifferent, except one. Lazue caught his dark eyes, which darted between her face and the pies she was clutching to her chest. Then he laughed and jumped to his feet, kicking his chair out behind him.

One pursuer.

Gritting her teeth, Lazue caught up to Mabel. "Teach wants my pies!" she cried. Mabel laughed, as this had happened more than once before after dinner with the crew, but Lazue was already bolting by her and disappearing down the hallway.

She was not giving anyone her food. Her stomach had taken control of her brain.

She dashed back to the Records cabin and locked herself in. By now Mabel had gone the opposite direction, likely back to her own room she shared with another one of the nurses to stash her treasure somewhere safe. Mabel would find her later.

Those pies disappeared in a matter of minutes, because she knew that Teach would lumber after her until the end of time if she still had food he wanted to request she share. It had happened before, in the mess hall…

She choked down the last few crumbs that got dangerously close to her work on the Devil Fruit encyclopedias when a knock shook her up. Instead of being nervous, she just laughed.

"You're too late, Teach! I ate them all!"

"Zehahaha! Lazue! Open the door! I want to talk to you, girlie!"

She fished around the table for a few last crumbs, plopping them into her mouth. "'Bout what?"

"Your encyclopedia! I don't want your pies…least not right now."

She heaved a sigh of relief. Not that she had any pies to give. Still, she didn't want to get into an altercation with such a big man over the matter of a few sweet pastries.

She opened the door with a smile and greeted Teach, a member of Ace's division that had decided to stay behind rather than accompany Ace. Truthfully, he wasn't the only one that wanted to kick back and relax on the _Moby Dick_. There were a few that seemed lacking in the ambition department.

"What is it, Teach?"

His face – previously split into a wide, albeit disgusting grin – grew solemn. His voice dropped and he leaned down towards her, as if to divulge some great secret.

"I'm curious, girlie…that encyclopedia you brought back to the ship, does it have an entry for the Yami Yami no Mi?"

* * *

><p><strong>A.N.:<strong> Updates _may_ be sporadic from now on as I'm moving at the end of the month. But thank you, everyone, for your continued support for this story!


	21. Chapter XXI

**...**

* * *

><p><strong>Encounters<strong>

_Chapter XXI_

* * *

><p>She stared at him. The Yami Yami no Mi? She had read about that fruit. A cursed thing, that one was. More so than the rest.<p>

Regardless, she motioned him inside the Records Cabin and they sat down at the bench in front of the two encyclopedias, and the huge stack of papers Lazue had been writing on as pages in her new book.

It took her only a few minutes to locate the fruit Teach wanted.

"It's an ugly thing, isn't it?" Lazue brushed her fingers over the hasty drawing. "It almost looks as though the original artist made it out to be the ugliest of all the Devil Fruits."

Teach chuckled. "Perhaps it is. Have you read about it, Lazue?"

"I have. It's horrible. The black hole of the Devil Fruits. It sucks up everything in its path."

"Like a vortex," Teach agreed. "It has a brilliant ability to control gravity too. And I suppose you know about how it can nullify another's Devil Fruit powers by absorbing them?"

"Yeah, I know," she said. Where was Marshall D. Teach going with this? "So, what's up? Why did you want to see the encyclopedia?"

"Because, I think something needs to be recorded in it. I heard something else about that fruit, and I think you'd be interested in hearing about it." He smiled, his rotted yellow teeth gleaming. "It's something not in the books. A rumour I heard But maybe it would be good if it was."

And then Teach leaned in to whisper a tale of horrors into her ear, and she just knew that what he had to tell her would haunt her conscience until she wrote it down. But even then, long after he'd left her to her tasks, it was too terrible to hold a pen to.

She didn't sleep that night. Then again, she found it hard to sleep in a cold room with Ace far away any night.

* * *

><p>They sat on deck in the sun. Lazue was sitting a good few feet away from the rail, where she had keeled over this morning with a case of seasickness, and Mabel sat behind her, braiding her hair. The braiding was beginning to get irritating, but Mabel's presence temporarily drove away the loneliness that had prevailed ever since Ace left, so she tolerated it. Besides, it was interesting to hear Mabel gossip about the others on the ship.<p>

"I heard Hannah used to be the surgeon on Marco's ship before he joined Whitebeard. Apparently they were quite the pair. Then they had a momentous fight that ended, naturally, with Marco flying off. Or so I've heard. They say Hannah's the only one in the world Marco's afraid of, because she stirs up emotional stuff, of course." Mabel shrugged. "And don't we all know how men get when emotions come into play."

A frown crossed Lazue's face. "Marco? I thought he was relatively young. And Mabel's old and wrinkly now."

There was a gleam in Mabel's eyes as she leaned in to whisper, "Rumour has it that Marco's twice the age of Whitebeard. Speculation though, speculation…but maybe you can solve that one by using the Devil Fruit encyclopaedia. Does it say the phoenix lives forever?"

"I haven't gotten that far with the entries in this ship's book, but in mine there isn't anything about age in relation to Marco's fruit. Well, nothing that I remember, anyway."

"He's mysterious," Mabel said, sitting back on her hands and staring up at the sails billowing overhead. "Still, I kind of want to solve that mystery. Let's go check Whitebeard's book!"

It was kind of hard to deny Mabel anything when she seemed enthused to the point of pissing herself with excitement, so Lazue merely followed in her stead as they went below deck to the Records Cabin. The searched through the book, but Marco hadn't written too many specifics down under his own fruit. They then set out to question the source, Marco himself. Their search led them to the bowsprit, where Marco perched above the water, staring into the horizon.

"Commander Marco!" Mabel cried. "We want to interrogate you about your Devil Fruit!"

He peered back at them from over his shoulder. Even from twenty feet away the subtle smile he wore was clear in Lazue's eyes. "Hello, girlies."

"Way to tell him exactly what we're trying to get out of him," Lazue muttered. It didn't matter if Mabel heard her or not, the girl was already trying to climb out onto the relatively thin log that was their bowsprit. She was having trouble. In fact, Lazue wouldn't put it past her to fall off the log and land on the figurehead, or the waves in front of the ship far below.

"Mabel, wait a second!" Lazue exclaimed, trying to reach out to grab the girl's shirt and pull her back to safety.

"Hold up, I've got her."

Thatch, materializing out of thin air as he often did, jumped up onto the wooden beam and walked a few paces down it, then hunched over and grabbed the runaway by her waist. She thrashed, and began to fall off the bowsprit, but his strength made sure she went over his shoulder instead.

"Hey! Put me down! Put me do – oh, C-Commander Thatch!"

He deposited her next to Lazue with a grin. Lazue was mighty curious how the man had such good balance, but attributed it to the fact he was a swordsman aboard the _Moby Dick_. That had to count for something, right?

While Mabel blushed and tried explaining herself and her rash actions, Marco joined them, displaying the same skill as Thatch. The perfect balance, that was. "You two have questions you want answered, or what?"

All of a sudden, Mabel went rather meek. Lazue figured it was the hand still cradling her wrist – Thatch's concerned touch – that immobilized her. She almost laughed, but decided she would try to help her friend out instead.

"Is your ankle okay?" Lazue asked, dropping to her knees next to Mabel. She purposely angled her face away from the two men to give Mabel a look. "I thought I saw you twist it!"

Mabel stared at her incredulously for about half a second, then her act went on. "Oh! Oh, yes, it does hurt!" Lazue moved her hand down Mabel's leg and squeezed her ankle, digging her nails in out of sight. She twisted the limb slightly. In response to the sudden pinching, Mabel yelped.

"Are you badly hurt?" Thatch asked. There was no doubt in his voice. Perfect. Now he too leaned down to take a look at Mabel's ankle. The effect almost made Mabel swoon.

_Not just yet, girl_, Lazue thought with just a hint of gleeful mirth. "Hey, Thatch, why don't you take her to get checked out by the nurses? Just in case it's sprained."

"That's a good idea," Thatch agreed. "Here, I'll carry you."

And just like that, Lazue had managed to give Mabel some along time with her apparent love.

"I'm not fooled," Marco said as he watched Thatch carry the girl off. "But hey, you did good, girlie. Thatch is so gullible when it comes to the ladies."

"Is it true that you and Hannah were once together, or is that just a silly rumour?"

She had blurted it out before thinking too much about the effect it could have one the First Division Commander. Based on the sour look on Marco's face she could conclude the head nurse was a touchy subject.

"It's not something I want to talk about," Marco said simply. "Let's just say we have always been at each others' throats, and something happened that neither of us forgive the other for. Maybe I'll tell you some day. Likely not, though."

And with that, Marco stalked off, but before he could get out of earshot Lazue shouted, "Marco! Is it true that you can live forever?"

He turned around to face her, and commenced walking backwards. "Wouldn't you like to know that too, girlie?"

She cursed and stomped back to her room for a nap. She needed it after being awake for so long. But first she would have to get something to eat, because her stomach was acting up again. Craving pies, of all things.

Damn stomach.

* * *

><p>At first she hadn't believed the man who'd told her Ace had returned, but when the cheers filtered down through the planks of wood overhead she had raced up to the deck to see that it was true. <em>The Porpoise<em> was docked alongside the _Moby Dick_ and men were bringing across supplies. The whole place was in an uproar, many voices talking at once. And laughing. There was always a lot of laughter aboard the _Moby Dick_.

She saw Mabel standing with some of the other nurses and waved to her. Mabel saluted her back and pointed towards the snow brig that shuddered in the breeze. She continued to look, dodging men with crates and shimmying her way closer.

Finally, she saw him.

He was frowning until he caught sight of her, and then his face morphed into a goofy grin and he ignored the man trying to talk to him in favour of rushing over to her.

Her elation when he secured his arms around her was immediate and all consuming. Even with Marco, Thatch, and Mabel around, Ace was the only one that had seen what she'd seen, the only one who she knew for sure she could trust with everything. He had seen her at her worst, and perhaps never at her best, but still found it in himself to embrace her. And that counted not for something, but for everything.

"You won't believe it. I have something for you," Ace whispered into her brown hair that the wind swept into his eyes.

"Oh? You bought me something, perhaps?"

"Well, not really," he admitted.

She laughed and gave his shoulder a squeeze. "I should have guessed you'd steal it without giving a penny to the other guy. You _are _a pirate, after all."

This time, he laughed, the deep baritone tremors caressing her cheek. "No, it was a gift from a young lady. Quite a ghostly thing, she was. Ambushed me in a bookstore."

"And I suppose she ambushed you to give these," she pressed her fingers to his lips, "a quick kiss."

He chuckled and kissed her fingers before pulling them away to speak. "Sadly, I never get ambushed for kisses. Most people stay well clear of me with this mark on my back. Except for you. You chased me down."

"Not for your kiss, though," she said, jabbing him in the stomach. Like hitting Marco on the shoulder, jabbing Ace's abdomen left her finger sore. It was like poking a rock.

Someone called Ace away before he could tell her what he'd brought back to the _Moby Dick_.

Ace was required to finish his duties, report to Whitebeard, and then and only then could he relax and spend time with Lazue. He hurried to wipe his slate clean, and Lazue went back to their shared room near the ship's stern to wait for him to return. Before they parted again, Ace told her that the item he had brought back was something he wanted only her and Whitebeard to know about for the time being. This had intrigued her, and she bided her time waiting by going through Rouge's letters once more.

When Ace finally got back to their cabin, he seemed sullen and ready to drop dead at any moment. His earlier euphoria had worn off and in its place was an expression filled with fatigued creases, and eyes that watered slightly. He suffered from a lack of sleep, she quickly deduced.

Just as she did.

But when he lowered to the ground this horridly patterned, watermelon-like rucksack, a genuine grin graced his features and Lazue knelt beside him. Without further words, he withdrew two objects from the pack, both books, Lazue noted.

"That isn't…"

"It is. Another one. The fun never seems to end, does it?" Ace said with a hesitant laugh.

Lazue didn't laugh. Instead she was mighty concerned. "Where did you get this?"

"A winter island I sometimes do trade on for Pops'. They fly our flag. I went into this shop looking for…well, something to get you," his cheeks coloured and she caressed his cheek, touched by the gesture. "But instead, this woman who had consumed the Blend Blend no Mi handed me off this thing," he hefted the encyclopedia bound in a dark brown skin, "and this," he lifted the other book, a little black one not so different from the one Rouge had kept in her possession. It was a lot less worn around the edges, but roughly the same size.

"So now I have three encyclopedias, that all look the same. Somehow this whole thing just got a lot more interesting. Still, Jaunis' encyclopedia had a lot of information about that Devil Fruit. I suppose she looked like a ghostly old woman, right?"

"Ghostly, yes. Old, no, not so much."

Lazue furrowed her brow. "Well, one can't trust appearances. The Blend Blend no Mi is a fruit that creates a chameleon out of its user. So really, they could have been anything and you wouldn't have known." She picked up the encyclopedia and flipped through some of the pages with him, pausing every once and a while to remark upon a strange Devil Fruit neither of them had ever seen. New World Devil Fruit.

When the first inklings of a headache began to press at her consciousness, Lazue closed the encyclopedia and picked up the black book, intending to set it aside with Rouge's letters on the nightstand next to the bed where she usually kept everything of importance to her. But as she thumbed through the pages, noting how empty of ink they were, her thumb grazed over an uneven bump in the pages. She flipped back, and as she was doing so a tiny piece of folded paper slipped from the book's grasp and floated down to the floor.

Ace stared at it but made no move to get it. He always showed a hint of hesitation to handle anything paper, since it was so easily burnt.

With a sigh, Lazue picked it up, opened it, and scanned the handwriting, reading a few of the words and expecting just some misplaced love letter or something equally silly. Her heart began to beat fiercely in her chest and she forced herself to go back to the beginning, read it from the start.

_Archivist,_

_Inside this book contains the secrets of the divine organisms known as the Devil Fruits. You know this. It is the knowledge that years were spent gathering. But, between this book, a deeper secret lurks. Seek it out, but do not expect to make sense of it with only a few lines of the code in your possession. _

_Knowledge is fathomless power._

_- Portgas D. Jaunis_

Lazue gapped. Even dead that old woman continued to haunt her. First in her dreams, now in her living reality. She sank to the deck, dimly aware that she had dropped the note back on the floor and that Ace was leaning down to read it. When she lifted her eyes to gauge his reaction, she saw a distant, misty cloud in his eyes. So, the woman troubled him, too.

"She left you something to find, it seems," Ace said at last, thumbing the musty cover of the newest encyclopedia to join the pile. "But…how is it that she knew I was going to show up on that winter island…and go to _that_ bookstore?"

"Maybe she could see the future. Maybe she knew it was a place Whitebeard often visited. Maybe she had a den den mushi connected to that women on that island and warned her to track us down eventually, and it was chance that you ran into her. Maybe–"

"Maybe, maybe, maybe," Ace muttered, interrupting her by placing his arm around her shoulders and pulling her body against his. She skittered across the floor and ended up in an awkward position, half in his lap and half pined to his side by a bulky arm.

"Ace…" she whispered, trailing off as he ran the fingers of his other hand through her hair. A wild and irrational look had come about his face. He was a weird mix of worried and angry, his mouth quivering and his eyes alight. "Ace…"

"I really hope nothing too strange is about to happen," he said. His voice had tightened as if a serpent had wrapped itself around his neck and was giving a firm squeeze. "This is all kind of bizarre. The New World…I put nothing past this sea. There's no doubt in my mind now – Jaunis has been here too. And she knows more about it that either of us do."

"Do you think she's trying to warn us?" Lazue asked. "Well, not that the letter was really _addressed_ to us in particular. But still, that knowledge is power thing had to have meant something more. She said that same line to me before…but I didn't get what she _truly _meant. I still don't know, actually. But I feel like we're closer than ever before to figuring out why these books are so damn important."

Lazue snatched up the black book and leafed through it again, hoping to find more clues. She felt like that crazy old woman was trying to communicate to her, but to say what she hadn't the foggiest idea. She wrote blandly, yet she wrote intricate riddles.

There had to be something more. Something else to point her in the right direction.

Ace grew tired of the book, taking up a post on the bed where he faced the wall and focussed on breathing, trying to remember everything that old woman had said. Lazue found that she was beginning to hear the heartbeats of people bouncing about in her mind. That alone signalled how late it had gotten. Her sea spectrum, which she faithfully took in the morning, wore off at dusk.

She dug out the jar from her bag for the second time today and hesitated. She had used a layer of the stuff already, yet there were still a million days to go before she would run out, if ever. Still, she didn't like the idea of wasting one just to get to bed and screwing up her schedule. Besides, taking more than one at once could kill her. She didn't know how long it actually stayed in her system. Furthermore, she figured she was exhausted enough to fall asleep eventually, even with a bit of rhythmic thumping in the background.

She sighed and crawled into bed with him, shoving against his back so he'd move over and give her at least a few more inches of room. Instead he rolled onto his back and stuck his tongue out at her, weary of acting serious. An unspoken thought passed between them. They wouldn't discuss Jaunis and the problems she'd left behind any more tonight.

Since Ace wasn't intent on giving her another inch of room, she draped herself half on top of him and secured a grip in his hair to keep her body steady. She thought this would irritate him, but he snickered before dozing off, flicking the candles they had lit around the room out with a raised finger.

As Ace's breathing grew calmer in her ears, she listened to the slight nuances in the heartbeats of his crewmembers and eventually drifted off, too.


End file.
